


None Left to Protest

by zimriya



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Anal Sex, Idiots in Love, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Minor Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Kim Jungwoo, Minor Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Moon Taeil, Minor Mark Lee/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Pining, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:07:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24447088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zimriya/pseuds/zimriya
Summary: “Lee Taeyong,” Jaehyun says. “I have your name wrapped around my finger.”Lee Taeyong’s eyes drop down to Jaehyun’s name tag for the third time, and then he brings his drink to his mouth and takes a long sip. “So?” he says when he’s done.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Lee Taeyong
Comments: 58
Kudos: 453





	None Left to Protest

**Author's Note:**

> I am once again writing about Jaeyong as college students, but this time, it is a soulmate au, and AT LAST, Jaehyun POV!!!!! The mythology in this fic is based around Plato’s idea of soulmates, but I also wanted to pay homage to the idea of a red string of fate. I made all of it up. 
> 
> Betaed by Hexmen, the light of my life.
> 
> Title from _Much Ado About Nothing_ , Act 4, Scene 1: “I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.”

#### Connecticut, 2004

##### Eight and Ten

* * *

“In the beginning, we had four legs, four arms, and two faces.”

“That’s dumb,” says Jaehyun. He’s eight, he’s tired, and he wants to go to bed, but he’s too stubborn to tell his mother any of this. It’s past bedtime. Jaehyun hates that he has a bedtime. Jaehyun begged for this story, and while it’s not what he thought he’d get, he’s going to enjoy it as best he can. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t going to have opinions. Especially when faced with… dumbness.

His mother looks at him with disapproval in her eyes, and he squirms. “Jaehyun-ah,” she says. “We don’t use words like that.”

Jaehyun wiggles more solidly into her lap, recapturing her hand so that he can continue to pet at his father’s name, inked in red and circling her left pinky. He has to tilt her hand very far so that he can see it, but he manages, tracing the characters as they glimmer between hangul and hanja. At least Jaehyun thinks those are the right words. He’s had it explained to him time and time again, but it’s hard to listen when you’re eight. It’s harder still to _understand_ when the only person who seems particularly bothered by all of it is his grandmother, and she lives far, far away back home in Korea.

Or not home. (Not anymore.) Just back in Korea.

“I’m sorry, Mommy,” Jaehyun says. “Uh.” He tries to remember things he’s heard, making his eyes big and craning his head back to stare at his mother upside down. “Continue?”

His mother looks down at him and smiles, shifting to interlock their fingers. “What do we say when we want things?”

“Continue… please?” Jaehyun says, still staring at his mother upside down. She shakes her head at him, but gently rights his head with her other hand anyway. Then she leaves it there, petting through his hair, and Jaehyun does his best not to obviously sink into it. He’s not a baby anymore. He’s a full eight—seven, here—years old.

“Where was I?” says his mother.

Jaehyun turns all the way around in her lap so that he can stare at her, lips turning down into the pout he’s been fighting since it hit the bedtime he said he was too old for. “Mommy!” He lets go of her hand.

His mother grins even harder, but finally gives in. “Ah yes,” she says. “I was telling you about how we had four arms, four legs, and two faces.”

“And I was telling you that that was dumb,” Jaehyun mimics, but makes extra sure to mumble, so she can’t hear nor understand.

“What was that?”

“I said, please continue please,” says Jaehyun immediately, taking hold of her hand again. He tugs it this way and that and then puts his own on top of hers, palm up so that he can see the name on his own finger.

“In the beginning, we had four arms, four legs, and two faces,” says his mother, and Jaehyun talks along with her, not even thinking about it. “We must have looked very strange with our many arms and legs—and noses—ears—” She reaches out and tweaks Jaehyun on the nose and on both ears as she speaks, and he giggles, pulling away from her fingers.

“Mommy!”

His mother just gives his right ear one last twist, before continuing her story. “But because we had two faces, we were never lonely,” she says.

Jaehyun blinks up at her, enchanted. He’s never heard this story before. He’s heard that the name on his finger is the other half of his soul, but he’s never heard more than that. It must be because he’s eight now, and about to start first grade. Jaehyun sits straighter, trying to mimic the way his father holds himself.

“We always had someone to talk to, so we were happy,” says his mother, with another touch to Jaehyun’s ear. “Like you with your stuffed animals.”

“Mommy,” Jaehyun whines.

“Sorry, your toys,” his mother says.

 _“Mommy,”_ Jaehyun repeats. “ _Story_.”

“Yes, baby,” says his mother, and keeps talking before Jaehyun can protest the endearment. “But not everyone was happy,” she says. “The sun god wasn’t happy. The sun god didn’t have four legs and four arms and two faces—he only had two legs and two arms and one face.”

Jaehyun weighs her words, thinking. He turns to look out their window, like he’ll be able to see the sun, so late at night.

“He was afraid of us,” his mother says. “And so, he split us in two. ‘Now they will be happy,’ he said. ‘For now, they resemble me.’”

Jaehyun turns back to face his mother, still holding onto her hand, but loosely now. “‘Resemble,’” he repeats slowly, and then faster. “‘Resemble.’”

His mother gives it to him in English as well, and he frowns. “Mommy—” He hates English, even though he knows he has to learn it, especially since school starts tomorrow; especially since this is home, now.

His mother smiles at him and taps his nose. “I love how you love our country, Jaehyun-ah,” she says quietly. “Please don’t lose that.”

Jaehyun stares at her with his head as far back as it can possibly go, nose scrunched up from where she poked it. “Whatever,” he says in English, like he’s heard on TV and when they go out to the store.

His mother laughs. “The sun god thought he had done us a favor by splitting us in two, but he hadn’t,” she says after. “Because the sun god had not realized how lonely it was not to have someone to talk to—”

Jaehyun opens his mouth.

“Yes, we could talk to other people, but it wasn’t the same,” his mother says before he can speak, tapping him gently on his bottom lip this time. Jaehyun fights the urge to bite her finger. “We were lonely because we missed our other half—our second face.”

Jaehyun understands “lonely.” Jaehyun is lonely whenever he’s not allowed to go over to a friend’s house to play, or when he has to stay home with a babysitter while his parents go out to play. “I understand,” he says seriously. “Being alone is not fun.” Staying in the house is not fun, but he knows better than to say that. He knows he’s not the only one struggling to find their place in this new country. He knows that it’s unfair to make his parents feel sad.

“Being alone is no fun,” his mother agrees. “But we had to be alone now, because of the sun god.”

Jaehyun turns to face the window again, and then stays that way with his back to his mother’s front. “That’s also dumb,” he says, hopefully fast enough that she won’t get mad. “And mean. He should not have done that.”

“No,” his mother says. “But the sun god had a sister.”

Jaehyun tilts his head back up so he can sort of look at her. “Can I have a sister as well?” he says hopefully.

His mother wraps both her arms around him and holds, giving him a squeeze. “Jaehyunnie, what do we say when we want things—”

“Can I have a sister please as well?” Jaehyun says again. “Mommy.”

His mother just hugs him some more but doesn’t answer him. “The sun god’s sister was the moon goddess, and she took pity on us,” she says instead. “She felt bad for us, and while she could not put us back together, she could tie a red string of fate around our little fingers to lead us back to our other half—our other face.”

Jaehyun is distracted from his wish for a sibling by this information, grabbing for his mother’s hand again so that he can look at his father’s name where it wraps around her finger. Then he drops it so that he can look at his own hand, pulling it close to his face. He wonders about the name written there. He frowns.

“That’s why all of us were born with a name on our little finger,” his mother finishes, taking Jaehyun’s hand and touching the base of his pinky. “That name is our soulmate—our other face—and the person who is the other half of ourselves.”

Jaehyun looks down at their hands for a long time, thinking. Then he purses his lips and frowns even harder. “That’s dumb,” he says again. “I’m not… two people.” He stares harder at red characters on his pinky, squinting to try to make them change without moving. In some lights it’s hangul; in other’s it’s hanja; in all lights it says _Lee Taeyong_ in red ink. _Lee Taeyong_. Jaehyun’s soulmate.

There’s no way this Lee Taeyong is the other half of Jaehyun, whatever that means. Jaehyun isn’t missing anything except his own full set of hanja and unless this Lee Taeyong can give Jaehyun Chinese characters, he’s useless to Jaehyun, who isn’t even living in Korea anymore, where people have hanja and hangul on their soul strings. Everyone around Jaehyun in Connecticut has their soulmate’s name written in _English_.

“It’s dumb,” Jaehyun says again, in English this time. “I hate it. I hate… Lee Taeyong.” It feels weird to say the name out loud, and Jaehyun’s finger itches as soon as he does.

“Jaehyun-ah.”

“I’m sorry, Mommy,” Jaehyun says quickly, not looking at her, but not looking at his pinky anymore either. He’s tired. He’s nervous. Tomorrow is the first day of school. He would like to go to bed, but he doesn’t want to say that—doesn’t want to ask. He had wanted a bedtime story, and he had been excited because this was a new one, but now he just feels upset, and he doesn’t know why. He had hoped maybe his mother would read him a book in English, but sometimes she hates the language more than he does. He swallows, lifting his head, and turns back around to give his mother a hug, hiding his face in her stomach and inhaling the clean scent of home.

“Jaehyun-ah,” his mother says again but leans down to kiss him on the back of the head anyway. “To bed with you. You have a very big day tomorrow.”

That night, Jaehyun does not sleep well, tormented by dreams of being chased by a faceless boy who has only the characters for Lee Taeyong’s name where his eyes ought to be. When he catches Jaehyun he somehow seems to smile, before trapping Jaehyun inside himself, so that all Jaehyun can do is look out at the world, his mouth swallowed up by the skin of Lee Taeyong’s neck.

 _Soulmates are stupid_ , Jaehyun decides, waking in a cold sweat.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, and so very far away.

Jaehyun doesn’t need to meet Lee Taeyong; Jaehyun doesn’t even miss him.

* * *

#### Seoul, 2019

##### Twenty-three and Twenty-five

* * *

“—that’ll be 5,000 won,” Jaehyun says, with the sort of mindless autopilot that he’s perfected after only a week at this job. It’s not exactly Jaehyun’s dream vocation, but it’s helping to save for the apartment he’s been dreaming of since his first fire drill in the dorms, and even though he loves his roommate Mark, he misses having a kitchen and his own bathroom, let alone a space to get away from people, should he choose. Jaehyun doesn’t usually choose, but even he is starting to grow tired of living practically on top of his fellow freshman. It doesn’t help that because of his enlistment, Jaehyun is one of the older ones in the building—the Hyung.

The customer in front of him finishes paying for her coffee with a polite little bow, before turning to leave with the drink—an iced-americano, because it’s only just the end of August, Mark’s birth month.

Jaehyun debates texting him, but Mark asked for the room to himself that morning as a very belated birthday present, and Jaehyun knows better than to expect a response until at least the afternoon. Mark found his soulmate on his first day of summer session back in June, but until the second, Mark was a teenager and Johnny-hyung had rules. If the two of them want time alone to “celebrate,” who is Jaehyun to begrudge them of that. Unfortunately, that does severely reduce his pool of people to text while at work and bored, however. Sicheng doesn’t have a class on Monday and his flight isn’t due back to Seoul for hours.

Jaehyun sighs.

He can see a pair of birds pecking away at the ground outside the shop windows, and wonders briefly if someone’s left food, or trash. It’s surprisingly quiet for a Saturday, but that’s probably because it’s still so early. Their only other customer is bent over a book at one of the tables in the corner, but his hair is such a shocking shade of cotton candy pink that Jaehyun is doing his best not to stare too obviously. He’d never have the guts to do such a thing to his hair—he’s not an idol—but even he has to admit that he’s often wondered what he’d look like with something besides his natural color. It doesn’t help that the guy is wearing a pair of obviously customized converse, and Jaehyun is practically itching to take a photograph.

The door opens with the bell, signaling more customers.

“Hey.” Jaehyun’s manager drops a freshly made drink onto the counter beside Jaehyun, startling him. “Quit slacking off. That’s for Lee Taeyong.” He turns.

Jaehyun’s heart skips a beat. “Lee—Lee Taeyong,” he manages. His left-hand sympathy burns and it’s all he can do not to rip off his pinky ring. He swallows.

His manager tilts the drink around so that he can look at the name on the cup, and Jaehyun notes the order—a Pink Drink—strawberry acai with passion fruit and coconut. Jaehyun didn’t even remember that was on the menu at Starbucks, let alone something someone would want when perfectly good coffee was available; let alone… something someone who was supposed to be the other half of _Jaehyun_ would want. (Although he is semi-tempted now, though, honestly.)

“Yep.” His manager doesn’t look very impressed, and Jaehyun does his best to smile. “Do you need me to shout it too or can you manage?”

“No, sorry, uh—Lee Taeyong!” Jaehyun calls, as his manager turns back to the espresso machines and their other customers—two giggling girls who Jaehyun has definitely seen around campus.

It’s the boy with the pink hair, because of course it is—he’s the only other person in the shop; Jaehyun is an idiot—and he stands, dropping his books into a shoulder bag and making his way up to the counter to collect his drink. He’s already paid, clearly, and all Jaehyun has to do is hand him the drink but he can’t. He—Lee Taeyong has very beautiful, enormous eyes and thick eyebrows. His jawline is unreal. His mouth looks sinfully soft. He’s shorter than Jaehyun, but most people are. He’s staring. He very clearly wants his drink.

“Hi,” Jaehyun says.

Lee Taeyong raises one of those unfairly attractive eyebrows. “Hi.” His eyes dip down to Jaehyun’s name tag—Jaehyun’s _nametag_ —and then back up again, expression just as unreadable. “Are you going to give me my drink?”

Jaehyun’s manager is shooting Jaehyun another ugly look as he rings up the giggling girls in front of him, but Jaehyun pays him no mind. “Right. Yes,” he says, struggling to hand the drink over. “It’s… very pink?”

“I like pink,” says Lee Taeyong simply, his eyes once again catching on Jaehyun’s nametag. “Anyway—”

“Wait, I—” Jaehyun reaches out with his left hand before he can stop himself, then drops his hand guiltily, embarrassed. He’s an idiot. It’s just not done. And soulmates are… stupid. Jaehyun doesn’t want this to be his Lee Taeyong. “I—I have your name wrapped around my finger,” he says.

Lee Taeyong’s eyes drop down to Jaehyun’s name tag for the third time, and then he brings his drink to his mouth and takes a long sip. “So?” he says when he’s done. His lips are glossy and faintly foamed pink and Jaehyun feels dizzy. “Your name is wrapped around mine too—”

Jaehyun’s heart starts to _pound_.

“—but you should save your breath. I have two names on my soul string.” He turns to go.

Jaehyun stares after him, mouth open wide.

“What was that about?” says his manager, coming to stand next to him looking snappish. More people come into the store, passing Lee Taeyong as they go. “I’m not paying you to flirt. One Java Chip Frappuccino. One—hey—where are you going—”

But Jaehyun isn’t listening, already throwing off his apron and gloves, then lunging out from behind the counter in his haste to chase after Lee Taeyong. The man’s already left the shop, already reached where the pair of birds was earlier, and Jaehyun’s left his stuff in the back, but he doesn’t even care, doesn’t even worry that he’s left his favorite Bose speakers. “L-lee Taeyong!” he shouts as he reaches the door, pushing it open and racing out onto the sidewalk. “Taeyong—Taeyong-ssi—wait—”

Taeyong stops in his tracks but doesn’t turn, and Jaehyun makes his way up to him gasping. He’s not even out of shape, but the combination of not expecting the situation and the metaphorical butterflies taking up roost in his stomach seems to have robbed him of any dignity, leaving Jaehyun winded on top of the blushing.

When Jaehyun reaches him finally, Taeyong turns, that infernal eyebrow going up again. It’s unfair. Jaehyun never used to think that he had thing for _eyebrows_. That would be weird. He’s been making fun of Mark for his thing for Johnny-hyung’s elbows pretty much since the moment they realized they had each other’s names tied around their pinkies. Jaehyun is not into Taeyong’s eyebrows. He’s just shocked by the situation.

“You—your name is around my pinky,” Jaehyun says.

Taeyong nods. “And your name is around mine,” he says again, and Jaehyun _flinches_ , his ears feeling like they’re on fire. “But as I said—I have two names written there, so you’re wasting your time.” He makes to walk away again, and this time Jaehyun has to reach out and grab him by the wrist like they’re in a drama.

“No—wait— _I_ have two names,” Jaehyun blurts, heart and mind racing. “I—what’s the second name on your soul string?”

Taeyong stares down at where Jaehyun is holding his wrist like he’s expecting Jaehyun to cower and let go. Jaehyun doesn’t, lifting his head.

“My legal name is Jeong Yuno,” he continues, meeting Taeyong’s eyes full on. “But I was born Jeong Jaehyun and I go by that, now.”

Very slowly, Taeyong tilts his hand in Jaehyun’s grip until the underside of his palm is visible. When Jaehyun looks down now, he can see his own handwriting, terrible and disastrous and spelling out both of his names. It’s upside down and the glare from the sun keeps flipping the characters into their hanja correspondents, but Jaehyun doesn’t care, too busy feeling like the only thing keeping him standing is his own grip around Taeyong’s wrist.

“The ‘hyun’ in Jaehyun doesn’t have hanja,” Jaehyun explains, feeling nervous but unable to stop talking now that he’s started. “My parents couldn’t make up their minds when they had to name me, and the name they chose didn’t have hanja—and my grandmother wanted to write my name with hanja, so I changed it when I went to high school.” He swallows. “And then I—for a while I thought I was going to be an idol, and there’s—well—U-Know Yunho.” He laughs. “But even though that didn’t happen, I had already decided I should go back to being Jaehyun—I’ve only ever been Jaehyun at school.” He glances towards Taeyong’s bag, his customized shoes, and black jeans. “I’m a student at SM U. Do you—are you also—”

“You have… two names,” Taeyong says slowly, interrupting Jaehyun’s embarrassing word vomit.

“Uh, yeah.” Jaehyun finds his gaze stuck on Taeyong’s little finger, at the glimmer of red that spells out both those names. This is the physical proof that this is Jaehyun’s Lee Taeyong, his soulmate. “And you have both of them on you—”

“I do.” Taeyong’s tone has gone funny, and he starts to turn his hand back over.

Jaehyun makes an involuntary noise of protest because he’s not ready to stop looking at Taeyong’s soul string—at his names.

“I have two names on my soul string,” Taeyong says again. “So you can imagine how that must have been, growing up.” His voice is still very soft, but his eyes are twin black holes.

Jaehyun feels all the air go punched out of his lungs. “What?” he manages.

“Yeah,” is all Taeyong says. He tugs his hand free and takes one step back. “Forgive me if I have absolutely no interest in sticking around and being ‘your other face,’ or whatever.” The air quotes feel particularly nasty but the glimmer of red on Taeyong’s right hand as he makes them is somehow even worse.

Jaehyun feels like the ground has been ripped out from under his feet. “You—but—”

“Goodbye, Barista-ssi.” Taeyong doesn’t even use Jaehyun’s _name_ , either of them. “See you never.”

“I,” says Jaehyun, as his soulmate walks out of his life without even a backwards glance. “You—what—” He stays frozen in the middle of the street in front of the Starbucks for what feels like hours, before an angry knocking on the glass catches his attention. When he twists around to face his manager through the window, the man looks livid and is holding Jaehyun’s bag.

 _You’re fired_ , he mouths. _Come get your shit_.

Jaehyun briefly shuts his eyes but goes back inside anyway.

`Mark-yah`, he texts on the train on his way back to the dorm. `I met my Lee Taeyong.`

Mark’s response is surprisingly instantaneous, but then, Jaehyun’s message is surprisingly important. `Omg. Jaehyun-hyung. That’s so exciting!`

`Yeah, well, he hates me`, Jaehyun replies before Mark can get too crazy. He leans back in his seat and debates beating his head against one of the conveniently placed poles over by the doors. `I know you’re celebrating your birthday, but I’d really appreciate it if you and Johnny-hyung-hyung weren’t naked when I got home. I could really use some ice cream. And cuddles. Also, I got fired.`

`Shit, Jaehyun-hyung`, says Mark.

`Tell me about it.`

* * *

They get really, really drunk. There’s ice cream, and a lot of cuddling, and several bottles of soju; Jaehyun ends up totally not crying into Mark’s neck while Mark texts live updates to all of their absent friends. Yuta’s got a shift at the aquarium and Sicheng is, as mentioned, still back home in China, but both of them are highly invested in the going-ons of Jaehyun’s sordid love affair, it seems. The only thing Jaehyun knows about their names is that they aren’t Jeong Jaehyun, but the fact that Jaehyun’s the second of their group to meet their soulmate is apparently big news. Never mind that Jaehyun’s soulmate wants nothing to do with him.

It’s awful and embarrassing and not how Jaehyun planned on spending his last weekend before fall session, but the other half of Jaehyun’s soul just told him he’d see him never, so. There are very clearly extenuating circumstances.

Also, the crying absolutely did not happen; Jaehyun will deny that shit to the grave.

“You know, when I was like eight, I didn’t even want a soulmate anyway?” says Jaehyun, sprawled across Mark on his bed because their beds are small and he’s still not familiar enough with Johnny-hyung to feel comfortable sharing, not to mention… that’s Mark’s bed Johnny-hyung’s laying on and Mark was celebrating his twenty-first birthday. They may have been clothed when Jaehyun walked in the door but who’s to say they hadn’t waited until the literal last second to do that. “I said they were dumb. ‘Soulmates are dumb,’ I said.”

He thinks about his mother and the look on her face when he said that. Then he thinks about the look on his grandmother’s face when she found out that he didn’t so much as care if his and Taeyong’s names were even a good fit and also hadn’t even looked into Taeyong’s Chinese characters. He thinks about how his grandmother always makes sure to ask him if he’s found Taeyong yet when they talk over KakaoTalk. He thinks about how just before he got home he left her on read, because he’s never been very good at lying to the woman.

“Eight-year-old me was right,” he says, and reaches for the bottle of soju. It’s not where he thought he left on the bedside table. He frowns.

“Jaehyun-hyung,” Mark says.

“Jaehyun-ah,” Johnny-hyung says.

“It’s not like I’ll ever have to see him again,” Jaehyun continues, closing his empty fist around air and trying to seem like he was just gesticulating and not trying to continue feeding poison to his liver. “Lee… Tae… whatever. I don’t even remember his name.”

“It’s literally written on you,” Mark tries to say, but Johnny-hyung very helpfully throws a pillow at him. He hits Jaehyun in the process but Jaehyun just wraps his arms around it and heaves out a long sigh, nestling more firmly into Mark’s side and trying not to think about what the pillow smells like.

“I don’t even remember his name,” Jaehyun says again.

Mark opens his mouth.

Johnny-hyung raises an eyebrow, then frowns. “Wait. Did you say Lee Tae—”

“How are we going to pay for an apartment next year now that you’ve been fired?” says Mark.

Jaehyun lets go of his pillow and sits up so he can stare at Mark with his mouth fallen open. His roommate starts rapidly turning the color Jaehyun’s ears feel. Jaehyun… Jaehyun doesn’t cry—wasn’t crying into Mark’s collarbones earlier; his shirt’s all splotchy because of… fashion—but his eyes feel sore and itchy because of… uh… allergies.

“Oh, shit, Jaehyun-hyung, it’s okay—you’ll be fine, look—maybe we shouldn’t have given you the soju but you—you’ll be fine—you’re right— _you never have to see him again_ —”

“ _I’m never going to see him again_ ,” Jaehyun wails, staring up at Mark with large—dare he admit—tearful eyes. “ _I’m never going to see him again_!”

There’s quite a lot more hugging after that, but less soju, and Mark very kindly puts the phone away and stops saying harsh truths. The next morning Jaehyun wakes up with the world’s worst hangover and what he thinks _may be the first pimple of his entire life_ , and decides that not only is he never having a repeat performance, but no longer is he going to ruminate on all things Lee Taeyong. He doesn’t need Lee Taeyong. He’s not an idiot who’d spend money to try to get his soul string lasered off, but he’s going to keep wearing his pinky ring and get another job so that he can get out of the dorms and into a real apartment. He’s going to figure out what he wants to major in. He’s going to graduate college. He’s going to be fine, because Jaehyun isn’t missing anything. Jaehyun isn’t the other half of anything.

Jaehyun walks into the first class of his Shakespeare 101 elective two days later to find Lee Taeyong seated in the front row of the lecture hall with his feet crossed at the ankles, and his hair no longer cotton candy pink. He’s not looking at any of the other students in the rows behind or beside him and he’s still wearing the self-customized converse, but he’s very clearly _not a freshman_ , like Jaehyun. He can’t be. He looks too at ease—seems to have picked the best seat in the entire lecture hall, given the glares he’s getting from a girl two seats to his left.

He’s also still very clearly still the man whose name is written around Jaehyun’s finger, though.

“Oh fuck,” Jaehyun hears himself say out loud, and Taeyong’s head swings up to look at him immediately. “It’s you.”

Taeyong stares back at Jaehyun with his unfairly attractive eyes, perfectly shaped eyebrows rising nearly to his hairline, but doesn’t say anything.

Jaehyun makes a beeline for the back of the lecture hall and sinks into the first empty seat he can find, heart racing. Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

* * *

“So, if you drop Shakespeare 101, does that mean you’ll have a free period to take Video Production with me?” says Mark. “Because you should do that. We haven’t passed the add/drop deadline and I don’t know _anybody_ in Video Production. For some reason it’s mostly girls, which is fine, but they’re all ‘romantics’ and I’m apparently ‘good looking.’” Mark breaks off, taking a bite out of his muffin and chewing very furiously. They’re currently taking up residence in the Starbucks Jaehyun used to work at and his former manager has been angrily washing mugs pretty much since the moment Mark and Jaehyun came in, but Jaehyun needed the caffeine hit and Mark was for once not sucking face with his boyfriend.

Jaehyun glares at his roommate. “Is that really the important thing here, Mark?” he says, focusing on the class thing, instead of the rest of that sentence. Mark has been glowing, and Jaehyun isn’t the sort of person who usually notices that sort of thing or even ascribes to that sort of romantic bullshit anyway (a lie; he’s the first to do that, but he’s doing his best not to right now because his soulmate fucking _hates him_ ). “I’m not dropping Shakespeare 101,” he adds.

Mark keeps chewing on his mouthful with wide eyes. “You’re not?”

“No.” Jaehyun turns his gaze on his own muffin but doesn’t take a bite. “That would be—” He bites his bottom lip.

Mark points at him. “You’re about to say something ridiculously competitive,” he says, flipping into English for all of that sentence just to make Jaehyun’s head hurt. “You loser.”

Jaehyun squints at him and replies in Korean. “I’m not a loser.”

“You’re a loser,” Mark refutes happily, swapping languages without comment. “Anyway, explain to me why you’re not dropping Shakespeare 101.”

Jaehyun drops his gaze to the muffin and the table and stares at them both like they’ll give him the answers to the universe. “I like Shakespeare,” he mutters. “And it’s Sicheng’s class.” Mark shifts in his seat like he’s going to say something, and so Jaehyun hurries to continue. “And it’s not going to be weird, or anything, like, it’s a big class and we probably won’t ever have to interact and it’ll be fine, honestly—” Before Jaehyun can finish, the bell on top of the door chimes, and Lee Taeyong himself comes striding into the coffee shop, this time with a friend.

Jaehyun’s luck is the sort of thing they write sitcoms about.

“—he’s following me, and it’s not romantic, it’s _weird_ ,” Taeyong is in the middle of saying loudly, and Jaehyun’s mouth snaps shut with an audible clack.

He very quickly bends down to take a bite of his own muffin, ears twin flames on the side of his head.

Taeyong is still going. “I don’t care what you say, Doyoung. It’s _creepy_.” He’s halted in the center of the Starbucks, pausing to unwind a pair of headphones from around his neck and stuff them in his pocket.

Jaehyun chokes on his muffin.

Mark drops his own muffin and reaches across the table. “Oh my God, Jaehyun-hyung—”

Jaehyun makes a horrified noise on top of the choking, and Mark very abruptly stops speaking, but it’s okay, because Taeyong hasn’t noticed either of them, nor Mark’s outburst.

Probably because of his friend—Doyoung—who has dark hair and shiny shoes and is staring at Taeyong like Jaehyun imagines aliens might stare at lesser life forms. “Taeyong-hyung,” Doyoung says, in a tone that Jaehyun notes really is very reasonable, if not the sort of tone Jaehyun imagines aliens would _use_ on lesser life forms. “He’s your soulmate.”

Jaehyun finally manages to stop choking in time for Mark to splash burning coffee all over their hands in an attempt to get him to drink something. “Shit—sorry—” Mark starts shoveling napkins into the center of the table like that’ll help; Jaehyun waves him off, forgoing the burning liquid to wipe frantically at the residual muffin and spit left all over his mouth from his near-death experience.

“Of course he’s in your English elective—nice going, almost not graduating, by the way, Hyung, you idiot.” Doyoung has the sort of voice that Jaehyun thinks he could listen to all day, if it wasn’t loudly and triumphantly airing all of his dirty laundry. “That thing around your finger that _says his name_ is literally _leading you to him_!” Doyoung continues, moving towards the front of the Starbucks and the counter. Jaehyun notices his former manager has risen to greet them. “It’s not creepy—it’s fate.”

“Fate,” Taeyong starts to say, shifting to follow his friend. “Fate—” Whatever glowing praise Taeyong had no doubt been planning to heap upon destiny gets swallowed up by the noise he makes when he sees Jaehyun, hunched over his muffin with coffee all over his hands, frantically white knuckling a handful of napkins.

“Mark-yah,” Jaehyun starts to say.

“ _You are following me_ _even to fucking Starbucks!_ ” shouts Taeyong and turns immediately on his heel to vacate the premises. The door dings, then swings back on itself more than a few times, and Taeyong’s friend Doyoung is left standing awkwardly up by the register. Jaehyun’s former manager looks about two seconds from re-hiring Jaehyun just so that he can fire him again.

Mark very helpfully reaches over with his own handful of napkins and manages to clean the coffee off of Jaehyun’s stinging hands. “Uh, so, I take it that was your Lee Taeyong,” he says, with a gesture towards Jaehyun’s left pinky.

Jaehyun slides his simple black ring off of it so that he can get at the coffee that got underneath, then takes a napkin to the metal as well. “Yep,” he says. “You’d be right.”

Taeyong’s friend Doyoung is now ordering tea and another one of those pink acai things, pointedly not looking at either of them. He’s not looking at Taeyong pacing angrily in circles near the bike rack outside the shop either.

“Right.” Mark casts a look in Doyoung and Jaehyun’s former manager’s direction, and switches languages. “So. When you said he hated you, you really weren’t kidding.”

Jaehyun heaves out a sigh. “No,” he says.

Mark winces. “Gosh, I’m sorry, Jaehyun-hyung.”

Jaehyun waves a hand.

Doyoung leans up against the counter to wait for his and Taeyong’s drinks, texting furiously on his phone.

“It’s fine,” Jaehyun says. It’s not fine, but he’s going to pretend it is until it really is. It’s only one semester—he just has to make it until February, when Taeyong will—when Taeyong will graduate, and Jaehyun will not, and their lives will unwind never to touch again. Jaehyun will… marry someone he loves who doesn’t have his names on their finger and it will be okay, honestly. Jaehyun will. Jaehyun will survive—

“Look, hi, I’m Kim Dongyoung, but I go by Doyoung, and I’ve already found my soulmate so it’s a moot point, but old habits die hard, I guess.”

Jaehyun looks up to see Taeyong’s friend Doyoung, standing in front of their table with a friendly looking smile. There’s a tightness in his eyes that suggests the one he’d been texting is the one outside the Starbucks audibly squawking at the three of them.

“My hyung over there is the idiot himself, Lee Taeyong.” He jabs a finger in the window’s direction without even pausing. “He has the social graces of a turnip.”

Jaehyun pauses—that’s a really odd comparison—but a glance shows that Taeyong has somehow tripped and fallen into a flower bush and is now angrily pulling leaves out his hair. The sight of that forces all other thoughts from Jaehyun’s head; Taeyong is adorable.

“He’s not usually this much of an asshole, though,” Doyoung continues. He squints at Jaehyun and Mark. “You’re freshmen.”

They both nod and Mark moves to stand. “Yes—I’m Lee Mark. I’m ninety-nine line, Jaehyun-hyung’s ninety-seven—”

“Ninety-six,” Doyoung—Doyoung-hyung says, pointing at the window again. “Ninety-five.”

Jaehyun’s soulmate is a full two years older than him. Is Taeyong- _hyung_. Jaehyun would have to charm his way into using banmal with him. Or he would, if they were on speaking terms and not apparently the unfated sort of soulmates; enemies, more like. Jaehyun shouldn’t… if Taeyong is going to hate him, he’ll just be Taeyong without the “hyung.” That’s reasonable. They’re not… _really_ strangers, if they’re supposed to be one half of the same… person.

Doyoung-hyung is still speaking. “My point is please don’t let this ruin your opinion of him—”

The door to the shop swings open once more and Taeyong comes rigidly back into the building to stand next to Doyoung-hyung, his head held high and his jaw a hard, tense line. It’s still a really fucking attractive jaw. Jaehyun still really wants to lick icing off it.

“One Pink Drink,” says Jaehyun’s former manager. “One tea.”

“That’ll be us. Nice to meet you, Mark. Jaehyun.” Doyoung-hyung takes Taeyong by the hand and hauls, dragging him back to the counter so they can get their drinks, where he immediately stares him down without speaking until he pays. The two of them leave the Starbucks. Jaehyun’s manager goes back to angrily polishing mugs.

Jaehyun somehow manages to find his words. “I’m not—following you,” he says, voice awful in the ringing silence of the shop and a full five minutes too late. “Shit.”

Mark stares at Jaehyun with his mouth open, before getting to his feet. “Come on,” he says. “I’m buying you the new LP that you’ve been eyeing. I don’t care that we’re both broke freshmen and I’m the one who just had a birthday. You fucking deserve it, Jaehyun-hyung. _Fuck_.”

Jaehyun just gets to his feet and follows him. He agrees. Fuck is right, and a free LP is a free LP. He goes to the rest of his Tuesday classes then stops into the science building to welcome Yuta back, who only has class on Wednesday now, and therefore spends most of his time hanging out with sea creatures or doing research. Yuta makes Jaehyun call him oppa and doesn’t judge him for his love life—has only hilarious stories about the children who went on a school trip to the aquarium last weekend. They got to meet the otters. Jaehyun wants to meet the otters. But when he begs, Yuta pretends very suddenly he can’t speak Korean.

It’s relaxing in the way that only being with Yuta can be, and Jaehyun hits the library to do homework feeling surprisingly at ease.

That night he and Mark get take-out for dinner and for once Johnny-hyung doesn’t come over. Jaehyun does his best not to notice that it’s totally for his benefit—Mark ordering Jaehyun’s favorite foods, letting Jaehyun soundtrack the conversation with his favorite music, and generally being more agreeable than usual. After two hours of this Jaehyun is full, content, and significantly more willing to spend the night blasting Bruno Mars to counter the noise from the next bed over.

“You can go call your boyfriend now,” he tells Mark with a smirk. “I promise I’ll close my eyes and everything. You’re free to send all the videos you want—sext all you want. It’ll be like I’m not even here.”

Mark throws a handful of rice at him, cackling when Jaehyun swears and has to get up to shake the stuff off his comforter. “Shut up,” Mark says. “I’d just turned twenty. It was a special occasion.”

“‘Hyung, I need you to spend the night at Yuta-hyung’s,’” Jaehyun mocks in an airy voice that sounds nothing like Mark but makes his roommate start sputtering at him regardless. “‘I’m an adult now, and I need to send Johnny-hyung _videos_.’”

“I do not sound like that!” Mark shouts, pointing at Jaehyun wildly with his chopsticks, but thankfully he doesn’t throw those at him. “Hyung, don’t be mean!”

“No, sorry, hold on. ‘I need you to stay with Yuta-hyung; I’m an adult; videos,’” Jaehyun says, then breaks off to make a farting noise and Mark starts cursing him out in horrified Korean, whining.

“Jaehyun-hyung!”

Jaehyun just grins, bemused. “What?” he says. “You don’t want to call him?”

Mark sets the takeaway boxes into their trash can and flops down onto his bed face first, totally pouting even though Jaehyun can’t see.

“I’ll take that out,” he tells Mark, pointing at the trash. “We shouldn’t—”

“Don’t forget your key,” Mark calls, lifting his middle finger in the air.

When Jaehyun gets back into the room Mark’s on his back with one pillow under his legs and the other on his stomach as he grins into his phone, which he has cradled between his neck and ear. He’s got his right hand in the air above him and is stroking along Johnny-hyung’s name with the left, but he smiles briefly when he sees Jaehyun come back in. Then he sits up, pointing. “Wait, he’s here, I’ll ask—don’t go anywhere—Jaehyun-hyung.”

Jaehyun blinks down at Mark with amusement. “Mark,” he says.

“Will you get dinner with Johnny-hyung and I tomorrow?” There’s a sudden burst of noise from the phone, which Mark tugs away from his ear with a wince.

Jaehyun stares. “Sure,” he says finally. “Uh—”

“Great, we’re going to Choikang. Johnny-hyung’s paying.” He hangs up the phone. Immediately it starts ringing, so Mark silences it, leaving it buzzing on top of the pillow.

Jaehyun keeps staring. “I want the record to show that the only reason I’m going is because it’s Choikang—”

“Because it’s Choikang, I know, Jaehyun-hyung, you love Choikang, you’d eat only there if you were rich and famous—”

“It’s ridiculously hard to get into,” Jaehyun mutters, thinking about how his father used to take him and his mother there for special occasions. “Especially if you try to say your name is Jeong Yuno—”

“I still can’t believe you actually did that,” says Mark.

Jaehyun crosses to his bed with great dignity and sits down. “I’m only going because it’s Choikang,” he says again.

Mark just nods, looking far too eager.

Jaehyun narrows his eyes. “And I don’t trust you.”

Mark pouts. “Aw, Hyung, have I ever let you down?”

* * *

“This counts as letting me down,” says Jaehyun, tugging at the cuff of his dress shirt and doing his best not to look too much like he’s on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Because he is. They’re in line to get seated at Choikang and Mark’s done a surprisingly good job cleaning up for the experience, so Jaehyun should be excited—this is his favorite restaurant—but he’s not, because he’s on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

Because Johnny-hyung has brought _Lee Taeyong_ to dinner. Jaehyun’s Lee Taeyong. Taeyong-hyung. Taeyong-ssi. Lee Taeyong of both Starbucks Fiascos, emphasis totally required.

It turns out Johnny-hyung and Lee Taeyong go way back; are friends. Johnny-hyung found out about both Starbucks Fiascos from some group chat that he’s in with Taeyong and Doyoung-hyung, who Jaehyun has since learned is majoring in Horticultural Science and is quote, a demon not to be trifled with, end quote. Johnny-hyung found out about the Starbucks Fiascos and then he told Mark about the Starbucks Fiascos—“What’s that—what’s that in Korean—do you really need to capitalize both words?” “Yes, I absolutely need to capitalize both words, Taeyong, please”—who then put two and two together and decided that the obvious solution was to _Parent Trap_ Jaehyun and Taeyong. Jaehyun doesn’t know who’s angrier about it.

He certainly knows who looks better dressed to impress, though. Taeyong is still shorter than Jaehyun and dirty blond because the pink was clearly just a thing for the summer and only, Jaehyun supposes, temporary. He’s in black slacks and half-white-half-black dress shoes and a blue and white button down that really isn’t more than a button down but his _shoulders_ —

Jaehyun would kind of just like a refund, thanks. Fuck whatever deity decided that this was what he was looking for. It fucking _was_ , but it also fucking _hates him_ , so.

“Stop looking like a murderer and smile, Jaehyun-hyung,” says Mark out of the side of his mouth.

“A hundred percent this counts as letting me down,” replies Jaehyun in the same tone, but stops glaring and does attempt something of a smile. The nervous looking woman in front of them taking Johnny-hyung’s name for their reservation physically recoils, though, so perhaps he’s missed the mark.

“Okay now you’re doing that on purpose. Stop _smiling_ like a murder—”

“This way,” the woman says, leading them to one of the tables and setting the menus down once they’ve moved to sit. Johnny-hyung and Mark go to occupy both seats to the right of the table—between them and the door, Jaehyun notes. They smile, both at the hostess and at each other.

Jaehyun sinks into the seat across from Taeyong and does his best not to make eye contact. For several seconds, there is nothing but silence. And then:

“Really?” Taeyong says.

Jaehyun glances up at him before he can stop himself, looking away quickly afterwards because of the look on his unfairly pretty face. Taeyong’s not scowling and he’s not baring his teeth but Jaehyun still feels like he’s bitten him, or something—reels back, drops his hands into his lap, and feels _stung_. (He feels like he can’t breathe. He’s never been allergic to bees before, literally or figuratively.)

Johnny-hyung reaches out and love taps Taeyong on the shoulder. “Taeyong-ah,” he says, like Jaehyun thinks one might do to a dog or an errant child. “Behave.”

Taeyong takes the hit with a stubborn tilt to his chin, but does offer a begrudging, “Sorry, Johnny-hyung,” anyway. His voice is soft and his eyes are still a little angry but he sounds like he means it, at least.

Johnny-hyung seems to accept that, turning back to Jaehyun and Mark with a smile. “So—” Jaehyun tunes out whatever it is he and Mark are talking about in favor of staring at the tablecloth, trying not to watch Taeyong too noticeably.

His hands are pretty, his fingers are gorgeous, and he’s got what looks like might be clay, under a few fingernails. He’s not wearing a lot of jewelry and he’s not covering up his soul string, but there are two bracelets around his right wrist, polished silver against moon-pale skin. Jaehyun wants to ask him what his major is. He knows he goes to school with them—knows it from Mark, who only offered up the information, “Johnny-hyung’s known him since they were freshmen and he’s in the art department, please don’t get off the train, Jaehyun-hyung, please,” because Jaehyun was threatening to bow out. He wants to ask Taeyong where he’s been. What his favorite color is, his favorite word.

Jaehyun… Jaehyun really _likes him_ , is the problem. Like, not just because of the name on his finger. Jaehyun doesn’t really _know_ him, but he wants to, and it sucks that Taeyong seems to hate him.

He lifts his head.

“Yo, Youngho, long time no see,” says a voice, in an odd mix of English and Korean, interrupting Jaehyun before he can break the ice.

It’s one of the other waitstaff, towel folded over one arm and an empty serving platter on one hand, pausing on his way back towards what must be the kitchen. He’s addressing Johnny-hyung.

“Chanyeol-hyung,” Johnny-hyung says, looking like he might stand.

The waiter—Chanyeol—waves him off. “Kyu-hyung mentioned you might be coming by.”

“Yeah, well.” Johnny-hyung just shrugs, grinning.

“You idiot,” Chanyeol tells him fondly, slapping him hard on the shoulder. “Why haven’t you come to visit sooner.”

“School, you know. This one.” Johnny-hyung nods towards Mark and then waggles his left hand. “Have I told you about Mark, my soulmate?”

Mark ducks his head, embarrassed, but offers his hand when Chanyeol steps close to offer congratulations.

Jaehyun is stuck gaping between his roommate, Johnny-hyung, and this Chanyeol, but a quick glance just shows Taeyong rolling his eyes.

“Flexing your connections again, Hyung?” he says.

Johnny-hyung shoots him an extra saccharine look. “Sorry this is your favorite restaurant and I’m not into nepotism, Taeyong-ah,” he says.

Jaehyun blinks. “This is your favorite restaurant?”

Taeyong looks at him and his good humor seems to fade. “Yeah. Why?” The words come out accusatory and Jaehyun’s stomach feels full of dead weight.

“It’s… mine too,” he manages to say.

Taeyong blinks. “It is?” He pulls a face. “Of course, it is—”

“Anyway, I’ve got to go—duty calls—but it was nice seeing you!” Chanyeol interrupts, with the social graces and aplomb only experienced serving staff can pull off. “You should come back more often.” He shoots Mark a look. “Bring the beau—”

“Yes, thank you Chanyeol-hyung,” says Johnny-hyung loudly, and Chanyeol laughs.

Jaehyun watches him go, thinking. “Did you work here?” he asks finally.

Taeyong shifts in his chair to hide a sigh, and Johnny-hyung shoots him a fond look. “What?” Taeyong says when he notices. “Don’t mind me. Do your thing. It’s—Jaehyun’s favorite restaurant.” The minute halt in Taeyong’s sentence before he says Jaehyun’s name makes Jaehyun want to stab one of the forks into his own leg.

“Yeah,” says Johnny-hyung, addressing Jaehyun. “I did three gap years in Korea between high school and college—it’s why I’m in the same class as Taeyongie—”

“He didn’t need to do enlistment,” Taeyong interjects to explain, seemingly without thinking about it, because he makes another face when he notices and then pointedly focuses only on Mark. Jaehyun tries not to realize, tries not to feel hurt about it, is unaffected—at ease—totally and completely calm.

“And I worked here,” Johnny-hyung finishes, ignoring all this. “My whole family’s back in Chicago, and the people here were like—”

“Your new family,” Taeyong interjects again. “Blah blah blah. Wait, say that again, I wasn’t recording, and you know Doyoungie will kill you for this—”

“Yah, Taeyong-ah,” Johnny-hyung says suddenly, with significantly less good humor. “What is your problem?”

Taeyong turns on him. “Gee, I wonder—”

“You’re being _ridiculous_ —”

Jaehyun finds himself clearing his throat, shifting in his seat so that they all look at him—what is he doing, why is he doing it, Taeyong _hates him_ — “Uh, that’s really cool, Johnny-hyung,” he says when the staring gets uncomfortable. “This is my favorite restaurant.”

There is an awkward silence, but no one points out that Jaehyun’s already said that—that it’s an established fact, at this point. Then Mark laughs. “Hey, paws off,” he says. “Johnny-hyung is _my_ soulmate.” It’s clearly meant to diffuse the tension, but unfortunately it only seems to serve as an entirely unwanted reminder of the fact that Taeyong and Jaehyun are also soulmates. The silence goes from awkward to downright uncomfortable.

Jaehyun should leave.

Jaehyun will leave.

Mark swallows a fake cough. “I have to pee,” he offers.

There’s a beat.

“I do too,” Johnny-hyung says, wincing because Mark has clearly kicked him under the table. “Don’t leave.”

And then they both get to their feet, disappearing across the floor like they know where they’re going—they must, since Johnny-hyung worked here, and Jaehyun and Mark managed to get a reservation once in celebration of finishing spring session earlier that year.

Jaehyun and Taeyong are left alone, in silence. There isn’t even any food to distract themselves with because none of them have ordered.

Jaehyun swallows. He should leave. He’s not going to, because he’s not that much of an asshole and he loves Mark, but. Fuck. He risks a look up. Taeyong’s put both hands on the table and the swirl of red around his right pinky is prominent against the white tablecloth and the paleness of his fingers. Jaehyun licks his lips and turns the metal covering his own soul string. “You—I—”

“So, you—know Johnny-hyung,” Taeyong says finally.

Jaehyun’s mouth snaps shut, but then he nods. “Yes, I, Hyung—My name is—” The standard greeting starts to come out automatically because Jaehyun has abruptly realized they never properly introduced themselves back in Starbucks that weekend.

Taeyong waves a hand. “None of that,” he says. “We don’t—” His ears flush a little and Jaehyun _stares_ , so used to being the one with the red ears. “I mean I guess you should, then.” His tongue darts out to wet his lips. “Jaehyun.”

Jaehyun’s toes curl in his shoes and he looks down. “Taeyong… hyung,” he manages. It’s not weird. It’s just them saying their names. They didn’t even say their full names like you’re supposed to when meeting new people. And they’re not… complete strangers. They have so many people in common. Well. Just Johnny-hyung, and he’s mostly Mark’s at this point. Jaehyun looks back up. “Look, I—I won’t—I’ll just—get new friends.”

Taeyong stares at him, mouth fallen open. “What?” he says finally.

Jaehyun doesn’t flinch. “That came out wrong,” he blurts. “I just mean, I only know Johnny-hyung through Mark, and, like, we’re in the same English class but you’re _graduating_ , so, we don’t… ever have to see each other after this.”

Taeyong keeps staring at him. “What?” he says again.

“I totally understand where you’re coming from,” Jaehyun continues, even though he doesn’t really. “Like, well, honestly I didn’t think that my soulmate would have both of my names on them but—I get it.”

Taeyong’s gaze drops to his right hand and he moves it off the table and into his lap.

Jaehyun’s stomach twists. “I don’t even believe in soulmates,” he says, and some of him must realize he can’t take it back because it starts _screaming_ , earsplitting and making him wince on top of the nerves. “I think it’s… I mean how can some higher power decide who you’re _made for_ anyway—”

Taeyong’s mouth has fallen open and it’s very attractive and Jaehyun finds it distracting and he _needs to not find it attractive because it is undermining the point he’s trying to make_.

“So, it’s fine, if you don’t ever want to see me again,” he finishes, and puts his own hands in his lap to avoid doing something like picking up a knife to attempt seppuku. “I can do my best to never see you again. If you want.”

Taeydong is still staring, but he finally shuts his mouth. “Jaehyun,” he says. “Jaehyun… Jaehyun-ah.”

Jaehyun’s insides try to turn in circles and he _tamps the butterflies the fuck down_ because, no.

“I’m sorry.”

Jaehyun blinks. That… wasn’t what he thought Taeyong was going to say.

“I’m so sorry,” Taeyong says again. One of his hands comes up to rub at his hair and it’s not the right one, thankfully, so Jaehyun doesn’t have to be tormented by the glint of his soul string. “I’ve been an asshole.”

Jaehyun is the one staring now. “You’ve been a what?”

“You’re not the one who was awful to me, as a kid,” Taeyong says. He’s dropped his left hand and picked up his right. He’s looking at the names around his pinky. He tilts his hand towards Jaehyun. “Here, you seemed to want to see it earlier—”

Jaehyun fights the urge to curl up and die in a hole but leans forward to look anyway. It’s his name—both of them—written in his handwriting and curling around the base of Taeyong’s shockingly-pretty little finger. His belly feels funny, and he fucking _needs to leave_.

“It’s not your fault that my classmates were awful,” Taeyong says, and Jaehyun finally drags his gaze away from Taeyong’s soul string to meet Taeyong’s eyes.

Jaehyun puts his own hands on the table and takes off his pinky ring, then drops it in the breast pocket of his shirt, all without breaking eye contact. “Here—you can—if you want—” Taeyong’s fingers on his feel like ice and Jaehyun can’t help but wince, somehow not shying away.

“Sorry,” Taeyong says quietly, rubbing a thumb against the characters of his own name. “Anyway, my point is I shouldn’t have been—been mean.” The name on Jaehyun’s fingers slides into hanja and Taeyong’s breath hitches in the middle of the sentence. “That’s—”

“It’s your name,” Jaehyun says helplessly. “It is, right? All of it? The right—I mean you have mine—”

Taeyong curls their fingers together and gives Jaehyun’s hand a squeeze. “Jaehyun-ah, breathe,” he says.

Jaehyun does, feeling significantly less lightheaded now. “Sorry,” he says. “Sorry—I’m not usually this, uh, Mark-like.”

There’s a pause, and then a sound that sounds remarkably like his roommate’s voice trying to protest, before it cuts off.

Taeyong’s lips quirk. “You realized they’ve been in the bathroom for way too long too,” he says.

Jaehyun hadn’t, but Jaehyun grins back at him anyway. They’re still holding hands and Jaehyun is totally okay with that. “Yeah.”

Taeyong lets go of Jaehyun’s hand and Jaehyun tries not to miss him when he does. “But I really am sorry,” Taeyong says. “I’m not—I won’t say I’m not looking because you’re already here and I’ve already found you.”

Jaehyun’s ears start flushing and the words start ringing in his head a little, but he holds it together and somehow manages to nod, aware this is serious, and really, he doesn’t want to make Taeyong uncomfortable. He doesn’t get it but he wants to get it; he wants to understand.

Taeyong must see something of that on Jaehyun’s face because he sighs, then covers his own face with both hands. “When I was five, I asked my mom why I had two names on my soul string, and she told me she didn’t know.”

Jaehyun nods, then realizes Taeyong can’t see. “Yeah?”

“And they took me to doctors and fortune tellers, but they didn’t know either, and it wasn’t like I was unhappy as a child.”

Jaehyun nods again. “Okay.”

Taeyong drops his hands to reveal a wry, sad-tinged smile that for some reason Jaehyun just wants to _fight_ , or kiss away, but that’s… that’s not helping anyone. “I won’t bore you with the details, but I think it wasn’t until I was like thirteen and the first kids in my class found their names and came to school the next day holding hands and kissing. And then people started… talking,” Taeyong says in a rush. “And you know we were all idiots at that age.”

There’s a sound that Jaehyun thinks might be his roommate’s boyfriend saying, “You’re still idiots now!”

“From that point on I was either going to end up with two soulmates: Jeong Jaehyun and Jeong Yuno—”

Suddenly there’s a lion in Jaehyun’s chest and it wants to fight _his legal name_ , which is just… absurd, honestly, what the fuck—

“—or I was a slut who was going to cheat on my soulmate, so—” Taeyong… shrugs. “People were mean,” he says. “And… let’s just say the slut thing… stuck. People thought I would be… easy.”

The lion very abruptly fades into non-existence, but Jaehyun doesn’t need it. Jaehyun will fight faceless, nameless teenagers all by himself; will build a time machine; will ask Taeyong where he went to middle school; will fucking _murder_.

“I’m not looking for my soulmate, though,” Taeyong says before Jaehyun can voice any of that and come across as insane on top of murderous. “Like I don’t—I mean I know it’s you, but—”

“Taeyong-hyung,” Jaehyun says. “It’s fine. I understand.”

Taeyong stares at him with somehow even larger eyes, looking relieved. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jaehyun says. “And as I said, I don’t even believe in soulmates anyway. I don’t care about your name being on me. I’m fine with us just being—” He stops talking, not sure if he should offer “friends,” or just stick with “classmates,” or maybe, “people who know each other because one of their roommates is dating one of their friends.”

“Friends?” Taeyong says.

Jaehyun’s insides try to dance some more but he thinks the smile he offers is normal and not that resembles a serial killer. “Yeah, sure,” he says quietly. “Friends. Uh, should we shake on it?”

“What if instead you order?” says Chanyeol, coming dramatically into view being ineffectively held back by what seems to be all of Johnny Suh. “Youngho. Get off. We have other paying customers.”

“Hyung, where is your appreciation for young _love_ —”

Jaehyun laughs loudly to cover his panic. “Sorry. We’re ready to order. Where’s Mark?”

“Here.” Mark drops into his seat from seemingly out of nowhere, looking between Jaehyun and Taeyong rather eagerly.

Jaehyun very kindly doesn’t comment on the amount of time they spent in the bathroom or make any sort of digestive jokes.

“So,” Mark says, picking up a fork and twirling it in the air like some sort of mermaid princess, or maybe a seagull. “Are you and Taeyong-hyung—”

“Friends,” Taeyong and Jaehyun both say, and Mark makes a noise that sounds remarkably like a seagull—not a mermaid princess, then.

Johnny-hyung drops into his own seat, smoothing down his hair. “Sorry about that,” he says. “Where were we? Are you okay?”

“Fine, Hyung,” Mark says, reaching for the water that Chanyeol is very kindly pouring for him. “Fine. Jaehyun-hyung and Taeyong-hyung were just saying that they’re _friends_ , now.”

Johnny-hyung looks between the three of them, though the way he looks at Mark is significantly fonder. “Yes, they have just met each other, Mark Lee.”

Mark kicks him under the table.

Jaehyun ignores how that deteriorates rather instantly into footsie. “So,” he says, addressing Taeyong. “What do you want to get?”

Taeyong wants everything Jaehyun wants, and some things Jaehyun’s never had at Choikang before, but is perfectly willing to try. Taeyong is kind of perfect, but Jaehyun is not thinking about that. Obviously, he has flaws—dramatics and taste in coffee case in point.

* * *

Jaehyun wakes up the next morning and thinks it’s all been a dream, until he walks into Shakespeare 101. Taeyong is in the front row again, but not in the best seat. The converses are back and the band shirt he has on has been cut down the front at an angle and resewn together using colorful ribbon. Jaehyun can’t help but stare. Almost like he notices, Taeyong’s head lifts. He smiles. It’s like looking at the sun.

“Jaehyun-ah,” Taeyong says. He pulls his books off the desk next to his, grinning. “I saved you a seat.” The girl two chairs down makes an audible noise of protest, but Jaehyun doesn’t notice, too busy stepping forward as if in a trance, before sinking down into the procured chair.

“Uh, hi, Taeyong-hyung,” he says once he’s settled. He sets his bag down at his feet and puts his pencil and notebook onto the fold out desk.

Taeyong grins at him some more. “Did you like the play?” They had to read the first act of _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ for today’s lecture, and Jaehyun didn’t mind it. He felt like it was cheating, but he’d tried to read part of it in English, and then harassed poor Mark for translation help. Mark had done his best but Mark had also dissolved into a rant about how, “Shakespeare isn’t even English, Jaehyun-hyung, it’s English that they spoke literally hundreds of years ago only not really because it’s basically poetry,” so Jaehyun’s not sure it was worth it.

“Yeah,” he says instead.

“I made Johnny-hyung help me,” says Taeyong, because apparently, he’s the exact same sort of cheater as Jaehyun. “It was surprisingly not helpful, though.” He stops, probably because Jaehyun is just staring at him. “What?” He reaches up with his right hand to touch the skin under his eye and Jaehyun can’t help but _stare_ at the ring of red around his finger. “Do I have something on my face?”

“Yeah, I mean no, I mean—”

Their professor starts calling the class to order and Sicheng starts shooting Jaehyun ugly looks.

Jaehyun flips open his notebook and leans in to share anthologies with Taeyong when he offers, too lazy to grab his own. So… friends. Jaehyun and Taeyong are friends.

* * *

Jaehyun and Taeyong really are friends. Taeyong’s funny and kind and a hard worker. Jaehyun should call him “Taeyong-hyung,” even to himself, but Jaehyun feels weird doing that. Some part of Jaehyun always thought he would have no barriers with his soulmate from day one; and Taeyong’s really nice, under all his bluster and over-excitement. He seems to realize that Jaehyun would be uncomfortable if he insisted on informality so soon, but doesn’t seem to have the stick up his ass about it that some of the other seniors have. Because Taeyong’s a senior—a sculpture major—and he’s only taking three courses alongside his thesis this semester. Two of them are twice a week for three hours because they’re studio classes, and so while Jaehyun’s head hurts just thinking about it, Taeyong just gets to disappear into his own creativity on those afternoons. More often than not he has to be chased out of the art building by Doyoung-hyung. Doyoung. That’s the other thing. _Doyoung’s_ soulmate is Kim Jungwoo, who lives in Jaehyun’s dorm and is in his and Taeyong’s Shakespeare course. Taeyong’s friend Ten is friendly with Yuta, and Ten’s soulmate is Wong Yukhei—Lucas—who Jaehyun took a psychology class with during spring session. Taeyong’s closest friend is still Johnny and Jaehyun’s closest friend is still Mark, but their other intersections are… numerous.

Mark keeps insisting it’s because they’re soulmates. Doyoung says the same thing too, according to Taeyong. Taeyong ignores them, because he’s, quote, “used to their teasing” and to being, quote, “the boring friend.” Jaehyun just ignores them because he likes having Taeyong as a friend and doesn’t want to upset the status quo.

So passes September and the first half of October. They read _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ and _Romeo and Juliet_. They go home for two days for Chuseok and then SM U holds their annual sports competition. Taeyong is surprisingly strong, Jaehyun finds out, if not quick, and flexible, and so fucking handsome when wearing SM U’s pretty pink colors. Jaehyun loves sports day and joins as many sports clubs as he can; only gives up soccer club after he fails his first pop quiz in World Music. He meets Ten officially, introduces Taeyong more officially to Yuta and milks the fuck out of the fact that the man for some reason cannot say no when faced with Taeyong’s beautiful, big eyes and so he gets to meet the otters at the aquarium face to face.

(“Jaehyun-ah, she’s holding my hand!” Taeyong says excitedly, as the four-legged ball of adorable wraps a wet paw around the hand with Jaehyun’s name on it and touches Taeyong’s soul string.

“That’s great, Taeyongie-hyung, I’m very happy for you!” Jaehyun calls back, and totally doesn’t fall face first into a pail of fish, no matter how Yuta likes to tell it.)

Jaehyun and Taeyong are _friends_ , and that’s all Jaehyun wants, really. He only wakes from guilty, dirty dreams a few times, and Mark’s too fucking embarrassed about that time Jaehyun walked in on him and Johnny having phone sex to say anything about it. Things are great, and Jaehyun has no interest in changing anything. Mark and Doyoung can just shut up about it; just because they’ve found their soulmates and are now sickeningly happy doesn’t mean everyone else in the world needs that to be complete. Jaehyun is utterly content with just being Taeyong’s friend.

Especially the Monday midterms start, when Taeyong shows up at Jaehyun and Mark’s dorm to make sure Jaehyun hasn’t died in the name of pass/fail. That’s the sort of shit that only friends would do.

“Jaehyunnie-yah, I know you’re alone and trying to consume our Shakespeare Anthology, so you don’t fail our midterm tomorrow,” says Taeyong, knocking on the door with a firm fist. “Open the door.”

Jaehyun had been, at that point in time, texting Mark stupid shit about how he was contemplating doing just that, but he also hadn’t eaten any lunch because he was studying. Also, who even believes the stupid shit people text during midterms anyway? Jaehyun wasn’t seriously going to eat a textbook, and certainly not something as large as their Shakespeare Anthology.

`Lee Mark`, Jaehyun texts. `You tattle.`

`You haven’t eaten since 7am and were seriously debating the nutritional value of leather-bound paper`, Jaehyun-hyung, replies Mark. `Taeyong-hyung’s a really good cook. You’re welcome.`

Jaehyun has a brief moment of fantasy involving said Taeyong-hyung, cooking, and very little clothing because it’s a fantasy and you don’t have to worry about burns and/or hygiene when fantasizing, but ultimately decides to write that off as a side effect of not having eaten since seven a.m. `You’re dead to me.`

`Haha, you keep saying that, but then you keep texting me.`

`Dead to me.`

Jaehyun puts aside his phone and his Shakespeare Anthology and shuffles into his slippers. Then he makes his way to the door and pulls it open, squinting into the fluorescent hall lights. “Taeyongie-hyung?” Wow, his voice sounds like he actually did try to eat a textbook. “How did you get into the building?”

“I know a guy,” says Taeyong, coming in uninvited. “Where’s your coat? We’re going out.”

“We’re going out?” Jaehyun says.

“We’re going out,” Taeyong agrees. He turns briefly to give Jaehyun a onceover and seems to realize Jaehyun hasn’t put on real people clothes since returning from World Music and is currently living in sweats and a long-sleeved shirt that says, “My other t-shirt is short.” “You cannot wear that,” Taeyong says.

Jaehyun stares down at his shirt and his sweatpants, for some reason offended. He has to bite his tongue to keep from saying something even more embarrassing about the fact that Taeyong is standing in his crappy dorm room in dark skinny jeans that are so tight they look painted on, black ankle boots, and a glossy, multi-colored button down that looks like it ought to be silk, but couldn’t be, given they’re all college students. His coat hits him just under the ass, tapering in to highlight his ridiculously tiny waist. Jaehyun’s throat feels dry. He wants to say something about how they can’t all be fucking _models_. He doesn’t. “Why can’t I wear this?”

Taeyong shoots him another look, kicking off his shoes and losing the jacket. He strides further into the room in just his socks so that he can peruse Jaehyun and Mark’s dressers; Jaehyun tries not to notice how he immediately he figures out whose is whose, because that’s probably just because he and Mark have very different styles, not because Taeyong knows Jaehyun as well as he ought to given they’re _made for each other_. “We’re going to Choikang,” Taeyong says. “You cannot wear that.”

Jaehyun absolutely could not wear such an outfit to Choikang, but he also knows they’re never going to get into Choikang, so he just keeps staring. “We’ll never get in,” he says eventually, once it becomes clear Taeyong is not going to stop systematically going through all of his nicer shirt options.

Taeyong looks up from where he’s been ruminating between two short sleeved choices—one black, and one with a color palette that totally matches the shirt Taeyong’s wearing, Jaehyun’s traitorously romantic heart can’t help but have him notice—with one eyebrow raised. “Yah,” he says, picking the matching t-shirt and then eyeing the blazer Jaehyun wore to World Music that morning, still draped over the back of his desk chair. “Jaehyunnie. What sort of attitude is that?”

Jaehyun blinks. “Um. A realistic one?”

Taeyong throws the shirt at him. “That’s the sort of attitude that convinces you to _eat your Shakespeare Anthology_ ,” he says. “We’re going to get in. And you’re not going to fail.”

Jaehyun picks the shirt off his face and does his best to convince himself that he’s not suddenly feeling much more confident in his ability to ace their Shakespeare midterm tomorrow, because that would be stupid, if not also the sort of thing that people write controversial blog posts about re: the state of autonomy and soulmates. “Ah—”

“You can just wear jeans,” Taeyong continues. “But, uh, maybe not black ones? Variety is nice, and we don’t want to look like we’re doing some sort of couple thing—” He seems to break off, embarrassed, but Jaehyun has done two months of this now, and he’s over it.

“Yeah, okay, Hyung,” he says, then lifts his own brow. “Are you going to stay and watch me change, though? Because I think that would be more coupley than wearing the same colors.”

Taeyong’s cheeks very abruptly go pink, but he steps quickly towards and through Jaehyun’s door without comment, closing it behind himself without even his shoes or a pair of slippers.

Jaehyun is left staring after him holding the shirt, trying to tell himself that this isn’t a date, no matter how it feels. It’s just two friends going out to eat at their favorite restaurant. Their favorite semi-fancy, exclusive restaurant that’s impossible to get into because the owner is dating the voice of the nation.

“Jaehyun-ah,” says Taeyong from outside the door. “You may think it was an accident but I’ve purposefully left my shoes in your room so you cannot lock me out and bail on me—it’s October, and after six; what kind of cruel dongsaeng would you be if you made me walk home in just my socks—”

Jaehyun throws off his shirt, throws on the other shirt, shimmies into his favorite pair of blue jeans, picks up the blazer, and then tugs the door open in time to catch the tail end of Taeyong’s dramatics. His soulmate is standing bracketed in the doorway with his arms crossed, smiling awkwardly at one of the freshman girls from Jaehyun’s dorm. She’s standing in her own doorway, clearly having been on her way out for some reason, holding a cup of microwave ramyun. She’s also now staring directly at them both around a mouthful of noodles. Jaehyun thinks her name is Jaehee and that she’s a freshman film major. He smiles, feeling his dimples pop into both cheeks. The noodles fall back into the cup. The girl squeaks, retreating back into her dorm room. The closing of the door is loud in the silence of the hallway.

Jaehyun turns his attention back to Taeyong. “Are you done, Hyung?” he says, with a smirk. He sticks an arm into the blazer and tries not to notice the way Taeyong’s eyes follow the pull of his shirt across his chest. “Your shoes.” He gestures in a fake bow once he’s done with the blazer. “Your coat.” He points to where Taeyong has left it on his bed.

Taeyong scowls at him before dropping to one knee to pull his boots on; Jaehyun nearly swallows his own tongue at the association that that action invokes. “Don’t be mean, Dongsaeng-ah,” Taeyong says when he’s done, straightening to his full height and leveling Jaehyun with a stare that makes his stomach flutter full of butterflies. (Fuck whatever higher power that was involved in assigning soulmates; they’re too good at their job, really.) “I didn’t have to come all the way across town to take you out to dinner.”

So much for not thinking that this is a date.

Jaehyun flails backwards into his dorm until he hits the bedpost, picking up Taeyong’s jacket and bending to grab his own shoes. “Are these dressy enough for your tastes, My Lord?” he says as he goes.

Taeyong rolls his eyes at him; Jaehyun can’t see, but he knows. “Come on,” he says. “We’ll be late.”

Jaehyun stares at him narrowly, frozen with the jacket held out between them.

“What?” Taeyong flips his collar up like he’s on some sort of American television show, and then smoothes it back down. “Do I have something on my face?”

“Do we have a reservation?” Jaehyun says almost at the same time. He feels… faint. Or something. Like warmth is spreading in the center of his belly and making the circle of Korean around his pinky hum. “Is that why you know we’ll get in?” _Is this… is this really a date?_ he doesn’t ask. That’d be stupid. Taeyong was very clear two months ago, and Jaehyun understood, understands, _gets it_. They’ve had two months to get closer, two months for Jaehyun to learn all the ins and outs of Taeyong’s middle school years. Children can be cruel and Taeyong had his own shit to work out, certainly, but nobody deserved to be left on their first date because the asshole they had the courage to hand their heart thought they’d be easy because they had two names on their soul string.

Taeyong is staring at Jaehyun with pink burning the tips of his ears. “Oh—I—no—Jaehyunnie, sorry—” he says, breaking off to rub apologetically at the back of his neck.

Jaehyun wants to beat his head into the nearest wall. “Right, yes, of course,” he says with great dignity. He turns to pat down his pockets making sure he has his keys and phone, then shuts the door and locks it. “Shall we?”

They don’t hold hands on the walk to the nearest subway station, nor do they say much of anything, but Taeyong stays as close as he’s always done, and has no qualms about sharing a pole once they’re on the correct train. The night is cool and clear and beautiful, but most shockingly, Taeyong and Jaehyun actually get in at Choikang. For some reason there’s little to no wait and an empty table for two, and as they’re being led across the floor, Jaehyun can’t help but stare around in amazement. “How?” he says.

“See,” Taeyong says. “You’re going to ace that midterm.”

Jaehyun doesn’t agree, but he smiles back anyway. “Yeah, okay, Hyung.”

Taeyong reaches out and punches him gently in the arm. “None of that,” he says. “You’re going to _ace_ it. Be top of the class.”

Jaehyun ducks his head and hopes his hair is covering his flushing ears, turning to catch the attention of the nearest person in chef’s clothes. “Excuse me,” he says, stopping him. “I was wondering. You’re not having some sort of special occasion, are you?”

The man turns to look at Taeyong and Jaehyun with barely more than a glance, clearly distracted. “What? Oh, it’s Soulmate Night,” he says, with finger quotes for some reason, and a grin.

Jaehyun stares, then looks quickly at Taeyong, who stares back with both hands raised, as if to say, “Don’t look at me.” “Oh,” Jaehyun says. “Do you need to see our fingers?”

The man finally seems to stop in his tracks, turning to face Jaehyun full on. He’s of average height with nicely styled dyed hair, dressed in full white with something written above his left breast pocket, but Jaehyun isn’t interested enough to read whatever is there. “Do I… need to see your fingers,” the man says.

Jaehyun shoots another look at Taeyong, before nodding. “Yes, as proof that we’re soulmates.”

Taeyong seems to make an involuntary little noise of protest, and so Jaehyun kicks him, doing his best to convey that he’s not going back on their understanding, just trying to keep them from getting kicked out of their favorite restaurant. Neither he nor Taeyong are exactly hurting for money, but Choikang is not cheap, and going twice in a year—even if it has been two months—is more than Jaehyun had expected, being a student. He feels like he ought to text his parents; ask Taeyong to take a photo of him with the sign so he can send it to them. But even after twenty-three years he still doesn’t know how to lie to his mother, and so he’s settled for almost radio silence and not offering anything but answers to her questions. He feels bad. But he doesn’t know how to explain Taeyong to her.

“As… proof that you’re soulmates,” the man says, drawing Jaehyun rapidly out of his rather depressing thoughts.

“Yes,” he says, glancing at Taeyong. “Uh, my name’s Jeong Yuno—Jeong Jaehyun—and he’s—”

“Lee Taeyong,” Taeyong says, sticking his hand out alongside Jaehyun’s with color on the tips of his own ears, but a seriousness that Jaehyun is _not into_ in his expression. “Do you need to see our IDs?”

Jaehyun kind of wants to hit himself. That would have been so much easier than just saying their names.

The man is looking between the two of them and their extended hands like Christmas has come two months early. “Jeong Yuno,” he says, staring extra hard at Jaehyun. “Did you know you have the same name—”

“You’re needed in the kitchen, Cho Drunkard,” a man says, walking past their table at a speed that renders him a blur. He reaches out as he goes and gets the other man by the arm and yanks, hauling him away from Jaehyun and Taeyong before he can finish his sentence.

“Wait—Chwang—customers—”

The man pauses without releasing the other, glancing over his shoulder at Taeyong and Jaehyun. “Enjoy your meal,” he says. “Your server will be with you shortly.” The two of them vanish around a corner, still bickering.

Jaehyun stares.

A man with a nametag proclaiming him “Kim Junmyeon” comes to stand before their table to take their order, and Jaehyun lets Taeyong handle that without comment, still stuck on the earlier experience. “Hyung,” he says once Junmyeon has left with their orders. “That was Shim Changmin.”

Taeyong shoots Jaehyun a quick glance, still apparently stuck on Junmyeon—he’d texted Johnny the moment the guy left, since Johnny knew everyone, and apparently had _stories_. “What?”

“The guy from before,” Jaehyun says. “Shim Changmin.”

Taeyong blinks. “The owner?”

Jaehyun glares at him. “ _Hyung_.”

Taeyong sets his phone down on the table. “Right, yes, Shim Changmin,” he says, steepling his fingers together in front of his face. “Are you a fan, Jaehyun?” He smirks. “That seems a little narcissistic, don’t you think.”

Jaehyun feels heat flood his cheeks. “Shut up,” he says. “My grandmother named me.”

Taeyong nods. “Ah,” he says.

“ _Shut up_ ,” Jaehyun says again, feeling the heat travel out to the tips of his ears. “I—Yuta-hyung is a fan.”

That seems to derail Taeyong a little bit. “Yuta?”

Jaehyun leaps gratefully onto the subject change. “Yes, _he’s_ big in Japan, you know.”

Taeyong’s eyes start to sparkle and Jaehyun does the language change in a split second. “ _Hyung_ , please!”

Taeyong sits back in his seat, still grinning. “Sorry, sorry,” he says. “I understand. There was a period in my life where I seriously considered paying a teenager on the internet for information about the man—I had to make sure his name was really Jung Yunho, after all.” He waves his right hand around in front of them and Jaehyun stares at it with his mouth fallen open.

“Oh my God,” he says. He hadn’t even thought about that.

“Yep,” Taeyong says. “But don’t worry, that was right about the time when Choikang was in the news because Changmin-ssi was his soulmate, so it ended up being a moot point.”

Jaehyun remembers, of course, because that was about the time his family stopped going out to eat at Choikang for special occasions. He’s never been much of an idol chaser, but he doubts anyone could have missed the moment U-Know Yunho went off the market. That his soulmate was a critically acclaimed chef with his own restaurant only seemed to make matters worse—Shim Changmin had his own set of admirers, it seemed. “Yuta-hyung really is a fan,” Jaehyun says finally.

Taeyong smiles.

“We have to tell him on Friday,” Jaehyun realizes, glee bubbling up inside him.

Taeyong looks at him with moderate confusion. “Friday?”

Junmyeon arrives with their appetizers and a wide smile. Jaehyun sets his napkin in his lap. “Mhmm,” he says. “Friday is Yuta-hyung’s birthday.”

Taeyong’s mouth rounds in recognition. “Oh, Jeong Jaehyun,” he says. “You’re awful.”

Jaehyun just grins back at him, all dimples. “Thank you, I try,” he says.

They have a great dinner. It’s not a date, but Jaehyun doesn’t need it to be one. “We should come back next month,” he says, after they’ve fought over who’s paying and split it 50/50. Taeyong looks at him curiously, shrugging back into his coat. “For Soulmate Night next month,” Jaehyun explains. “We should come back.”

Taeyong is still staring at him, kind of like Jaehyun’s grown a second head, but then he seems to snap out of it, nodding. “Right, yes, we should,” he says. “N-next month. For Soulmate Night.”

Jaehyun grins, pleased. They get up to go pay and as they’re walking Jaehyun makes sure to thank the man who let them in in the first place. He’s lost the nametag now and actually looks like he got into a fight in the kitchen, but he seems extra excited when Jaehyun mentions how they’re planning to come back next month.

“Oh yes for Soulmate Night,” he says. “Every twenty-first of the month. For sure.”

Jaehyun smiles back, and nudges Taeyong in the arm. “It’s a—plan,” he says, only stumbling slightly when his first instinct is to say “date.”

“Yeah,” Taeyong says.

The next day, Jaehyun totally aces his Shakespeare Midterm.

* * *

There are more almost-not-dates, but Jaehyun and Taeyong are only alone together because their friends are assholes. Mark was supposed to hang out with Jaehyun and his mother when she stopped by for a visit just after midterm week, but Mark forgot about a term paper and decided to try to become one with the library. Jaehyun’s only option was Taeyong, since Taeyong only had afternoon classes that day, Sicheng was swamped grading said midterms, and Yuta was once again working at the Aquarium. Mark and Johnny went with Taeyong and Jaehyun to Lotte World Halloween, but then immediately ran off to do unspeakable things at a wholesome, family establishment. Because Mark and Johnny were the sort of people who got off on being scared out of their minds, apparently. Jaehyun wasn’t scared, but Taeyong very clearly was, and there was a lot of hand holding and near leaping into Jaehyun’s arms, and at the end of the night Taeyong refused to look at him when Jaehyun was dropping him off at his and Doyoung’s apartment.

On both occasions, Jaehyun had to wrestle the dumb, romantic part of himself into submission, but he managed it—he was able—and Taeyong and Jaehyun’s friendship was utterly unaffected by all of it. Sure, Jaehyun’s mother pulled him aside while Taeyong was fetching their food from the SM U student café and asked him, point blank, “So, Lee Taeyong. Is he?” and Jaehyun had to swear her to silence and explain, “Yes, but we’re just _friends_ , Mom, _please_.” Sure, Taeyong pretty much held Jaehyun’s hand the entirety of the time they were at Lotte World Halloween, but Lotte World Halloween featured a swarm of employees dressed as zombies. It wasn’t a thing; Jaehyun was just being a good friend and keeping Taeyong from having a fear-induced heart attack.

They also made pottery together once or twice when Jaehyun was done with homework, but that wasn’t a date either. Taeyong was lost to his craft and, yes, it was a lot for Jaehyun to watch Taeyong wrap his perfectly shaped fingers around a pottery wheel and somehow be expected to actually make a vase as well, but Jaehyun did, because Jaehyun wasn’t a fucking wuss, and he could do many things while overcome with the very much non-platonic, non-friendly feelings he had for Lee Taeyong; pottery was one of them.

None of those were dates. And going to see _Much Ado About Nothing_ in a little indie theater on a weekend isn’t a date either. It’s research for their shared Shakespeare class, despite how they’re not even learning that play. Jungwoo even decides to tag along, making the entire outing even more platonic. Only then Jungwoo bows out before they can even finish purchasing tickets because Doyoung very suddenly doesn’t have class and he’s far more interesting than two hours with Taeyong and Jaehyun.

Which leaves Taeyong and Jaehyun alone at a little indie theater about to see one of Shakespeare’s romances. But platonically. Jaehyun would stand by that.

“You’re sure?” says Jungwoo, phone still held in his hand and Doyoung still on the other line.

“Jungwoo, it’s fine,” Jaehyun says, since Taeyong is stuck at the window figuring out their tickets. “Go hang out with your boyfriend.”

“Thanks.” Jungwoo shoots Jaehyun a grateful look, before stepping out of the line. “Hyung?” He puts the phone back to his ears as he goes, and Jaehyun watches him cross the lobby.

He’s doing his best not to notice that Taeyong is paying for both movie tickets; Jaehyun paid for lunch last time they went out, so he thinks it’s fair, and Taeyong is older—sometimes Jaehyun thinks it pays to be the baby, because so often he’s not, since Mark exists. Jungwoo stops just before leaving the theater to laugh at something Doyoung’s said, head thrown back. He holds his left hand in front of his face and rubs at the red around his pinky, before pulling open the door and leaving.

“You know, I don’t get it,” Jaehyun hears himself, after they’ve bought tickets and have waited in line at concessions. “I’m never going to be one of those people who ditches their friends for their soulmate.” That’s really unfair to Jungwoo, since Doyoung’s schedule is grueling and their opportunities to see each other are therefore few and far between, but Jaehyun is perhaps missing Mark lately, and grumpy.

Taeyong turns towards him, having procured an excess of buttery popcorn and candy while Jaehyun was moping. “Hmm?” he says.

Jaehyun hides a smile with pure self-control. “Nothing,” he says. “Do you need a hand?”

“No,” Taeyong says, juggling the snacks and popcorn without even being bothered. “Johnny-hyung’s not the only one who was a waiter for part of his college career,” he says. He grins. “Barista-ssi.”

Jaehyun throws his head back and groans, reminded of their disastrous first meeting, and his evil, former boss. “Please don’t remind me,” he says, taking his ticket from Taeyong’s fingers somehow without unseating the snack pyramid. “I swear one of these days that man is going to snap and put arsenic in my coffee.”

“I dated him,” Taeyong says happily. “Freshman year.”

Jaehyun is staring—they’ve never talked about this before—dating—and he’s… the lion is back, again.

“I don’t date a lot, honestly.” Taeyong appears to be in utterly high spirits, tapping his left fingers against the side of the popcorn. “Ah—Jaehyun-ah.”

Jaehyun takes Taeyong’s ticket as well and offers them to the employee so that they can get into the theater, dipping his head in acknowledgement when he tells them their theater—number seven.

“But Kyungchul—”

Jaehyun grinds his teeth together when hearing his manager’s name.

“Anyway, he knew my names,” Taeyong says.

Jaehyun tilts his head at him.

“It’s possible he might have been predisposed to holding a grudge,” Taeyong continues. “Uh. Sorry,” he adds.

“Huh,” is all Jaehyun manages. They find seats in theater seven. “So do you know what this movie is about?”

Taeyong stares at Jaehyun for a long moment, before skillfully setting down their popcorn and dropping a bag of skittles into Jaehyun’s lap. “Yes,” he says. “Don’t you… you’re the one who invited me—”

Jaehyun feels his ears start to go red. “Right, yes, shut up—”

“Am I distracting you, Jaehyunnie-yah?” Taeyong says, tone as sparkling as his eyes. “Are you so overcome with jealousy—”

 _Yes, actually_ , Jaehyun somehow doesn’t say, because Taeyong manages to stop himself before he can go too far.

His eyes have gone very wide and his mouth is pink and moist from stopping mid-sentence. “Shit, sorry—”

“It’s okay, Taeyongie-hyung,” Jaehyun says. “You’re okay.” He smiles, certain both his dimples are showing, and doesn’t even flinch when Taeyong shifts like he’s going to poke him in one.

On the train back to campus afterwards, Taeyong drops over onto Jaehyun’s shoulder and falls asleep. Jaehyun just stares down at his blank phone, the very picture of calm and collected. He can see himself reflected in the glass but what he sees there has to be a lie, because Jaehyun is at peace and not at all terrified. His eyes aren’t huge. His mouth isn’t a thin, white line. He’s fine. His phone lights up with a new notification from Mark, and he unlocks it with only a minor pause.

`You’ll never guess who Donghyuckie’s soulmate is!!!!!!!!!!!` reads the message, with eleven exclamation marks.

Jaehyun blinks down at it for a moment. `Donghyuck met his soulmate?` he manages. Donghyuck is one of Mark’s budding music major friends and one of the few people who can actually hold his own on a PC. (Jaehyun’s not counting Sicheng, since Sicheng’s an untouchable asshole in terms of the leaderboard, or Taeyong, who’s so good at Overwatch that Jaehyun literally was about two seconds from proposing marriage the first time he watched him wipe the floor with some random kid from America.) He’s funny, and born in 2000, and one of Jaehyun’s favorite dongsaengs—and apparently, no longer single.

`Yep!` Marks replies. `It’s Taeil-hyung!`

Jaehyun blinks rapidly a few more times. `Like… Johnny-hyung’s roommate?`

`Yeah!` Mark keeps adding exclamation points to all of his sentences, and it’s kind of cute honestly. `I don’t know how it never came up! Probably because I’ve already found Johnny-hyung and we didn’t need to do the “my full name is such and such” thing when we met, and I’m not Donghyuckie’s soulmate, obviously!`

`Also, it’s rude to ask people for their name when you’re not it`, Jaehyun points out helpfully. There’s a brief moment where Taeyong snuffles in his sleep and curls somehow even further into Jaehyun’s neck and shoulder, the heat of his breath making Jaehyun’s entire back break out in gooseflesh.

`Hey`, Mark says. `You’re the one who offered.`

`I was drunk`, Jaehyun says. `You were being intolerable because your name was in English.`

`How was I supposed to know I was going to find Johnny-hyung in Korea?`

`Fate`, Jaehyun says. `Isn’t that what you’re always telling me?`

Mark goes silent for another moment. `Hey, where are you, anyway? You’re not at the dorm.`

Jaehyun swallows. `So Donghyuckie’s soulmate is Taeil-hyung. How’s that going to work? Taeil-hyung is graduating next year, too.`

`Jaehyun-hyung.`

`What?`

`You’re with Taeyong-hyung, aren’t you.`

Lying to the friend he’s missed talking to because they’ve both been busy with their respective soulmates is bad, but God, Jaehyun really wants to. `I told you I was going to see a movie with Taeyong-hyung and Jungwoo.`

`Uh-huh. So why’s Jungwoo-hyung posting on Instagram with Doyoung-hyung?`

Jaehyun swallows. `Doyoung-hyung’s class finished early.`

`Jaehyun-hyung.`

`Look it’s not a big deal, Mark, honestly. Taeyongie-hyung and I are friends.`

`Friends who go to movies together. I bet he paid.`

`He’s older.`

`You’re in love with him.`

Jaehyun feels tension start in his shoulders but holds very still, trying his best not to wake Taeyong. `You’re changing the subject.`

`I’m changing the subject?`

`From Donghyuck and Taeil-hyung finding each other. That’s more important.`

`You’re all soulmates.`

`It’s more important, Mark.`

Mark doesn’t reply for a few more seconds, then seems to give up. `Ugh, fine. Get your ass home, Jaehoons. We’re all celebrating.`

`Love you too, Mak.` Jaehyun lowers his phone in time for Taeyong to stir, shifting off of Jaehyun’s shoulder and stretching in a way that should not be cute, but is.

“Mm,” he says. “Sorry, did I fall asleep?”

“It’s fine, Hyung,” Jaehyun says, turning to him with a smile that absolutely isn’t the least bit brittle.

Taeyong squints at him, clearly still a little sleepy. That’s probably why Jaehyun gets away with it; his smile is practically cracking at the seams. “Sorry,” Taeyong says again.

Jaehyun just grins harder. “Guess who found their soulmates tonight?” he says.

Taeyong blinks at him some more, reaching up to rub even more adorably at his eyes. “Who?”

“Taeil-hyung and Mark’s friend, Donghyuck.”

Taeyong’s eyes light up. “Oh, Donghyuckie!” he says, sounding considerably more awake. “And Taeil-hyung, really? Johnny-hyung and I used to joke he didn’t even have a name because he was so secretive about it. And he’s always wearing those giant rings and everything.” He smiles. “That’s so nice. I’m so happy for them.” His smile dims. “Jaehyun-ah,” he says. “Are you not happy for them?”

Jaehyun turns the brightness back up on his own smile, which clearly had started to noticeably wane. “No, I am,” he says. _How is it you’re so happy about everyone else falling in love and finding their soulmates, yet the moment you found me you ran away?_ he doesn’t say.

The train stops at their station.

They get off.

They go celebrate with their friends. Jaehyun sticks close to Mark all night, and Johnny folds him into their duet without even so much as blinking, perfectly sized to stand right in Jaehyun’s line of sight, keeping him from seeing Taeyong. His soulmate is all the way across the room, laughing and drinking juice and running his fingers through Donghyuck’s hair.

“Jaehyun-hyung, are you okay?” Mark asks him two hours in, with honest concern.

“Yeah,” Jaehyun lies.

* * *

He and Taeyong have a study date at the library the next day. Taeyong doesn’t really have any classes he needs to study for besides Shakespeare 101, but Jaehyun has always found things easier if he convinces someone to come and quiz him, and Taeyong has never once shied away from volunteering. He brings food he made in his kitchen—his _kitchen_ ; his very own, very well stocked _kitchen_ —and understands Jaehyun’s handwriting without having to be told more than once. (Jaehyun gets Taeyong’s handwriting also, but that’s just because Taeyong’s handwriting isn’t that awful, no matter what Mark or Doyoung say. And also, Jaehyun’s had Taeyong’s handwriting on him since before he could read and write—he’s had practice.)

Today they’re going over how to calculate an object’s position in the sky as seen by a viewer, and Jaehyun is starting to regret the decision to take a softer science for his lab requirement. He should have listened to Yuta and taken Biology—there might have been math in that too, but at least he’d have two friends for TAs, and a chance at pouting his way to exam prep. Now he just has Taeyong, who seems to be about as clueless as Jaehyun when it comes to Astronomical Units and Sidereal Time.

“So the Earth is like a clock,” Taeyong says, bent over Jaehyun’s textbook with a dubious expression on his face. “So… tell me what it means if the moon is at eight o’clock.”

Jaehyun stares back at him around a mouthful of unfairly good sujebi, and grins. “I don’t think that’s a thing, Hyung,” he says.

Taeyong consults the textbook once more, before pointing an accusatory finger at Jaehyun. “Wrong,” he says. “You’ll fail.”

Jaehyun slaps a hand to his chest, mock hurt. He pretends not to notice when Taeyong’s eyes drop down to catch on the slip of red threaded around his finger. He’s not wearing his pinky ring today, because he honestly forgot. Also, there’s honestly no point to hiding his soul string anymore, given present company. “Taeyong-hyung,” he says. “What happened to being supportive and helpful?”

Taeyong blinks back at him. “Haven’t you heard of tough love?”

Jaehyun takes another slurp of soup. “Haven’t you heard of positive reinforcement?” He licks his lips. “Operant conditioning? Pavlov?”

Taeyong grins at him. “If you wanted me to suck your dick you could have just asked, Jaehyun-ah,” he says, in time for the door to their study room to open, and a girl to freeze upon seeing them. Jaehyun doesn’t know if she heard that last sentence, but he really hopes not.

“Ah, sorry,” she says, raising her phone in explanation for why she didn’t see them, even though the room they’re in has one wall made entirely of glass. “Sorry.” She bows and then retreats, leaving them alone.

Jaehyun is kind of grateful, because now he doesn’t have to try to address the elephant in the room. Of course, now he and Taeyong are sitting in awkward silence, but that’s still somehow preferable to fielding Lee Taeyong making a dick joke in a totally platonic, “no, I’m absolutely not in love with you, you one of a kind, love of my life soulmate, why would you even think that?” sort of way.

“Uh,” Jaehyun says finally.

“So, where were we?” Taeyong says almost simultaneously.

“Sidereal time,” Jaehyun manages—because he has to go back that far to avoid said elephants. “Um. Maybe we should study something else.”

Taeyong closes Jaehyun’s astronomy textbook and opens their Shakespeare Anthology without pause, licking a finger and making a huge fuss about finding a line.

Jaehyun feels horror ice his veins—please, please, _please_ do not be love poetry, do not be love poetry—

“‘Oh, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful in the contempt of anger of his lip. A murderous guilt shows not itself more soon than love that would seem hid: love’s night is noon,’” says Taeyong. It’s Korean, obviously, and Jaehyun knows that the English is probably prettier—more poetic—but he still. Gets the gist. It’s been nearly three months and he thinks he’s starting to get a handle on it.

“What—what play is that?” he manages to ask.

Taeyong glances back at the book. “Ah, _Twelfth Night_ ,” he says in Korean. Then he looks at Jaehyun with suddenly shy, large eyes. “ _Twelfth Night_ ,” he says again, in English this time, sounding _adorable_.

Jaehyun wants to give him a hug. “Cool,” he says. “Is that—”

“I think that’s the one they made a movie of,” Taeyong says. “Like, in America?”

Jaehyun stares at him until he flushes and closes the book.

“Shut up,” Taeyong says, refusing to make eye contact. He hasn’t styled his hair today but somehow even a bowl cut is attractive on him and he’s wearing his glasses for once instead of contacts. Jaehyun’s wearing his own glasses but Jaehyun isn’t his own soulmate, so it’s a little bit different. “Jaehyunnie—”

“The one they made a movie of,” Jaehyun says, holding in laughter, but just barely.

“Shut up,” Taeyong says again.

“In America,” Jaehyun says. “That one.”

Taeyong pouts at him and then leans back in his seat, ankles crossed together and drawing Jaehyun’s attention away from his statement of the obvious and to his infamously customized converse. “Jaehyun.”

Jaehyun bites his bottom lip to try to stop smiling and fails, but he does stop teasing. He focuses on the shoes. “Hey, did you… I mean obviously you didn’t make those, but—”

Taeyong stares down at his shoes looking almost shy. “Yeah,” he says. “I like drawing on my things.”

“They’re really cool, Taeyong-hyung,” Jaehyun says. He won’t say the love poetry is forgotten, but art is a safer subject choice by far. But then… _Twelfth Night_. “That is the one where the guy convinces himself the gods just can’t _spell_ , right?” Jaehyun finds himself saying, hating to return to the subject of Victorian romance story, but thinking about it none the same. “ _Twelfth Night_ , I mean.” They didn’t have to read _Twelfth Night_ in class but Jaehyun _likes Shakespeare_ , and Sicheng took the class long before he TAed for it. And there was that movie. Jaehyun might like teasing Taeyong, but he’s not living completely under a rock.

Taeyong blinks up at him, his mind clearly still stuck on the shoes. “Uh.” He grabs Jaehyun’s anthology and starts riffling through the pages again.

“Because he’s got ‘Viola’ written on him but he’s in love with Olivia,” Jaehyun says, leaning forward to rest his chin in his palm. Taeyong’s having trouble finding the play this time and even his frustration is attractive, the furrow forming between his brows pretty, the way he keeps gnawing on his lip in annoyance making Jaehyun’s heart stutter. “Would you—” Jaehyun shouldn’t ask, or continue, or do anything of that sort, but Taeyong has dated other people; confessed as much just _yesterday_. People who weren’t Jaehyun, obviously. People who weren’t his soulmate. “Why did you date—” _Not me_ , Jaehyun doesn’t ask. Jaehyun doesn’t know if he could bear to say it. Jaehyun has so many other questions suddenly, and none of them are appropriate for platonic friends. Taeyong’s _twenty-five_ , dated at least one other person, and clearly wasn’t waiting for Jaehyun like Jaehyun was waiting for Taeyong. Taeyong… has probably kissed someone. Held hands with someone. Certainly gotten to the point where he was dumped by someone because he wouldn’t sleep with them. Jaehyun has watched porn and wormed his way out of spin the bottle using the name on his hand (“how cute,” all the girls in his class said, while the boys muttered under their breath about people who were goody-two-shoes on top of pretty.) but Jaehyun hasn’t _kissed someone_. Dated someone.

Taeyong has.

 _Why weren’t you waiting for me_? Jaehyun doesn’t ask. He bites his tongue.

Taeyong has stopped riffling through the anthology rather abruptly but doesn’t look up at Jaehyun. He just sits there across the table with his dark blond hair and glasses and his pretty, pretty eyebrows, perfectly shaped and angled down making him look angry. Jaehyun doesn’t know how to stop _looking_ at him. Jaehyun needs to stop looking at him.

Jaehyun needs to get his shit together because this is ridiculous. They’re _friends_ and Jaehyun is perfectly content with that.

For a long moment they keep sitting in silence, and then Taeyong very purposefully turns a page. Jaehyun looks down and the book is open to _Romeo and Juliet_ because of course it is. It would be a tragedy that Taeyong was looking at for this conversation. _The_ tragedy. The one with the star-crossed lovers.

“I was a really angry teenager, Jaehyun-ah,” Taeyong says quietly. He turns another page. “I don’t—I guess it’s only fair that we talk about this.”

Jaehyun fights the urge to ball his hands into sharp, angry firsts. “We don’t have to. Astronomy, right. My exam? Sidereal time? The ecliptic. Moons. Planets. Ascendants—or is that astrology? I don’t really believe in that—or ghosts—but aliens—fuck, uh.” He’s just spouting random terminology and now also rambling, but he can’t seem to stop himself.

Taeyong looks up and meets Jaehyun’s eyes. “I wasn’t waiting for you, Jaehyun,” he says seriously, and alarm bells start going off in Jaehyun’s head; his palms go sweaty; his ears turn the color of tomatoes; his common sense abandons him. “I didn’t let myself.” Taeyong sounds guilty and sincere and hopeful, somehow, and Jaehyun _can’t do this_.

“No, of course. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Taeyongie-hyung. I shouldn’t have asked,” Jaehyun says in one great rush.

Taeyong just keeps looking at him like some sort of fragile, perfect thing, and Jaehyun very valiantly looks for something else to do with his hands. There’s an eyelash on Taeyong’s left cheekbone and Jaehyun shouldn’t want to pick it off him but fuck if he wants to. He should sit on his hands to keep from doing that—that is _not platonic_ ; that is the opposite of platonic. Or… is it? He’s just being a good dongsaeng. Looking out for his hyung. Taeyong could get a sty, or something, right? That’s a thing?

“So, I’m not a virgin,” Taeyong says, which thankfully puts a stop to Jaehyun’s panicked inner turmoil about eyelashes, but unfortunately only gives his romantic heart further ammunition for turmoil. “And I’ve dated people who are not you.”

Jaehyun wants to carve the jealousy right out of himself; it’s unwelcome and not helping the situation.

“I feel like I should apologize, but that seems absurd,” Taeyong says.

“No, you shouldn’t apologize,” Jaehyun says, thinking of his mother and his grandmother and every guy friend he’s ever had save Mark Lee, who was surprisingly embarrassed to talk about anything sex-related, given his propensity for crude humor and also, his having already found his soulmate.

Taeyong blinks at him. “Are you—”

“I’m,” Jaehyun starts to say, and then realizes what he’d been about to admit to, and snaps his jaw shut on the words. “I’m sorry,” he says instead. “Honestly, Hyung, I promise I’m not—I’m not trying to go back on my word. I get where you’re coming from. I promise I don’t like you even a little bit at all like—romantically.” Liar. Liar, liar, liar. “I don’t even believe in soulmates,” Jaehyun keeps going. “You can date whomever you want—you should date, whomever you want.”

For a brief second Taeyong’s expression is for some reason, absolutely shattered, but then he’s smiling at Jaehyun like nothing has happened. “Astronomy?” he says, and ducks behind Jaehyun’s Shakespeare anthology.

“That’s… Shakespeare,” says Jaehyun slowly.

“Oh yeah.” Taeyong swaps texts without even pausing, and then looks back at Jaehyun with a smile that Jaehyun knows is fake but he can’t quite put his finger on how or why. So maybe he’s just imagining it. “Tell me more about sidereal time,” says Taeyong.

“Well,” says Jaehyun. “The earth is a clock—”

Taeyong laughs, and then slaps Jaehyun playfully on the arm, totally at ease, so Jaehyun must have been imagining it.

* * *

Jaehyun nearly sleeps through Shakespeare 101. He somehow fucks up and hits snooze one too many times on his alarm, then actually _turns off his alarm_ , and only wakes up when Mark comes back from his shower. Video Production is in a building literally across from their dorm, and therefore Mark cuts it as close as possible at least once a week so that he can shower in the morning and, quote, “feel like a human again.” His words, not Jaehyun’s. Shakespeare 101 requires Jaehyun to walk at least five minutes to the English building, and therefore leaving at eight-twenty is not something he can afford to do. Unfortunately, his phone alarm has let him down.

“Jaehyun-hyung, why are you still here?” Mark says, toweling his hair dry and not sparing the slumbering lump that is Jaehyun more than a glance.

Jaehyun goes from sleep-hazy and content to panicked and near-hyperventilating in a second. “Shit,” he says, scrambling desperately up from the bed and fumbling blindly in search of his glasses. No contacts today—in fact no brushing his hair, washing his face, or brushing his teeth—it’ll be a wonder if he even puts on real clothes. “Shit,” he says again, because he cannot go to class in his pajamas bottoms, and the shirt he’s been sleeping in is not fit for company. “Mark—”

Mark crosses the room, pulls open a drawer, and pelts a long sleeve shirt right at Jaehyun’s face.

“Thanks. You’re a lifesaver—”

The shirt’s the blue and white one that says, “My other t-shirt is short.” Jaehyun was wearing it last month—when he and Taeyong went to Choikang for Soulmate Night. Jaehyun doesn’t know if he should laugh or cry.

“Well?” Mark’s set down the towel and is standing shirtless in the middle of their room holding his own shirt. “You’re going to be so late, Jaehyun-hyung.”

Jaehyun glances at the clock on their bedside table, comes to that same conclusion, and nearly trips in his haste to get out of his pajamas. He’ll wear the shirt. It’s not a big deal—he’ll just change after class, or something, and it’s not like _today_ is Soulmate Night. It’s Tuesday. That’s Thursday. Jaehyun has so much time.

“It really is unfair that your face looks like that when you wake up,” Mark mutters, as Jaehyun hops around on one foot trying to get on socks. Thankfully his books and bag are still packed from when he got home from studying with Taeyong yesterday—he’ll have to lug his astronomy texts to Shakespeare for no reason, but at least he won’t be unforgivably late. Park-seonsaegnim is one of Jaehyun’s kinder professors, but he doubts even she’d be able to overlook more than fifteen minutes. Because it’s going to be fifteen minutes and Jaehyun is going to have to go in through the front if he wants to sit next to Taeyong.

He does.

And he _does_ , only, Taeyong’s not sitting in his usual seat in the front of the lecture hall. Taeyong’s all the way in the back—tucked into the aisle seat of the final row in the room, something Jaehyun knows he hates. Jaehyun is for a second, thrown for a loop. Then he regroups, and starts walking.

Park-seonsaengnim was watching Jungwoo answer a question about the witches when Jaehyun burst into the room as soundlessly as he could manage, but she still levels him a truly astounding glare as he passes by the podium, bypassing his usual seat to stand awkwardly in the aisle until Taeyong shifts his legs to let him pass.

“Yes, thank you, Jungwoo-ssi. Now—”

Jaehyun tunes his professor out, fumbling in his bag for his notebook and pencil, turning as quietly as possible to a blank page and scrawling out the date. He looks apologetically towards Taeyong until he sighs, nudging his anthology closer so that they can share.

“Sorry, thanks,” Jaehyun says, glancing up at the projector screen to see what it is he’s missed—something about Act V Scene I; the hand washing scene. “Did I miss much? Can I borrow your notes after class—”

Taeyong’s eyes dart down rather accusingly towards Jaehyun’s hastily scribbled attempts at catch-up note taking, for some reason briefly to the left where Jaehyun’s got his non-dominant hand resting on top of his notebook, and then down to his backpack, sitting still unzipped and rather depressingly sagged open at Jaehyun’s feet. He looks pointedly forward again. “You could just use your own anthology, you know,” he says quietly, without once looking away from the font of the room.

Jaehyun blinks. “Uh—”

“Some of us are trying to listen,” Taeyong continues, and he doesn’t move his anthology, but Jaehyun still bends to grab his own regardless. He feels… off center. Like Taeyong’s done more than point out the obvious, or move seats in the middle of the semester.

It’s not until class ends and Jaehyun is gathering his books so that he can go apologize and beg forgiveness from his professor, though, that Jaehyun realizes something is well and truly wrong. He’s standing in the aisle, fumbling to do up the zip of his bag with one hand, and he’s talking about something—the hair-color of the actress who played Beatrice in the movie they saw the other day; what he wants to eat for lunch; anything to fill the space because Taeyong is just staring at him, unreadable like he hasn’t been since that fateful day in Starbucks all those months ago—and Taeyong interrupts Jaehyun, utterly calm.

“I’m going to be late to class,” he says. It’s not monumental. It’s just a statement of fact. It’s not true—Jaehyun and Taeyong always get lunch after Shakespeare, before Taeyong goes to Sculpture and Jaehyun goes to Astronomy—but it’s not that big of a deal; Taeyong and Jaehyun don’t need to spend every waking moment together. They don’t even do that. It’s just, when they’re both already near the cafeteria and together, it makes sense.

Jaehyun still takes the sentence with the grace of an unexpected punch, however. “Oh,” he says. “Um. Sorry.” He steps to the side so that Taeyong can pass, then pauses. “We’re still on for Choikang Thursday, right?” he says. “Like… for Soulmate Night?” He waggles his left hand and feels a little bit like an idiot, but Taeyong always laughs when Jaehyun acts like a fool. He laughs with his whole body and lights up the whole room.

“Actually, I can’t make it,” Taeyong says, dim and unmoved. “I have a lab that day.”

He steps around Jaehyun without another word—not even an apology.

Jaehyun stares after him, stunned. “Your… your lab’s on Friday?” he manages, but Taeyong’s already gone down five rows and eased into the throng of students exiting the lecture hall, disappearing without so much as a backwards glance.

Jaehyun gets himself together and goes to the front of the classroom and begs forgiveness from Park-seonsaengnim. He goes to lunch with Sicheng, who had to stay late because he was the TA anyway, and then he goes to Astronomy, and when he gets back to the dorm in time to convince Mark they shouldn’t squander the meal plan their parents are paying for, he’s pretty much over it.

Only twenty minutes into dinner, Jaehyun realizes he’s not over it. “Hey, Mark, has Johnny-hyung said anything about Taeyong-hyung being off, to you?” Jaehyun says, as Mark takes a break from recounting his misadventures with having a best friend newly paired up with his soulmate—and both in his major to boot—to shovel rice into his mouth.

“No?” Mark says, covering his mouth with one hand because he hasn’t done Jaehyun the courtesy of swallowing first. “Why?”

“No reason,” Jaehyun says, then very quickly changes the subject. “Tell me again why I should feel sorry for you because Donghyuck and Taeil-hyung are being saccharine?”

Mark narrows his eyes. “Johnny-hyung and I don’t suck face in front of you,” he says. “Or come up with nicknames—did you know one of Donghyuck’s professors used to call him ‘the sun,’ and Taeil-hyung is ‘the moon’? What did _Game of Thrones_ ever do to them?”

Jaehyun raises his eyebrows. “That’s clever,” he says. “Moon of my life.”

Mark throws rice at him.

Jaehyun ducks, grinning. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to play with your food?” He wipes nonexistent rice from his hair with a free hand.

Mark abruptly points at Jaehyun with his chopsticks. “Hey, you’re not wearing your ring,” he says.

Jaehyun looks and notices he’s not. He didn’t really have time for much of anything that morning, but while he had gone back to the dorm after lunch in time to at least brush his teeth and put a comb through his hair, he’d left on the shirt and glasses; not thought about his ring. “Oh, well,” he says, and then spreads his fingers out in front of him. “I guess I’m not.”

Mark is staring down at the back of Jaehyun’s hand like he’s never seen a bare soul string before, and for some reason Jaehyun wants to hide his entire hand. Instead, he flips his hand palm up so that Mark can see all of it. He’s proud to show it off—Taeyong’s name flashing in between hangul and hanja for everyone to see how he’s Jaehyun’s.

Even though he’s not really.

“I’m practicing for Thursday,” Jaehyun says.

Mark stares. “Thursday?”

“It’s Soulmate Night at Choikang,” Jaehyun explains. “Taeyongie and I are going to go.”

“Taeyongie?”

“Taeyongie-hyung,” Jaehyun revises, flushing on the tips of his ears. “Shut up—it was a slip of the tongue.”

“I bet you want to slip Taeyong-hyung some tongue,” Mark mutters, but then looks the picture of innocence when Jaehyun stares, astounded. “What?”

“You’ve really gotten an attitude since finding your soulmate, Lee Mark-yah,” Jaehyun says. “I should rescind all future offers of banmal—teach you some respect.”

“Hey, no, we’re in the same class,” Mark protests, eyes huge, and Jaehyun only manages to keep a straight face for two more seconds. He’s forgotten all about Taeyong’s weird behavior from that afternoon. He really has missed just hanging out with Mark. He ought to hit up Yuta and force Sicheng to stop pouring every free moment into his thesis.

“Hey, but Friday,” he tells Mark. “Friday we need to hang out—all of us.”

Mark tilts his head. “All of us?”

“Yes you can bring your soulmate,” Jaehyun says. He swallows, but only because he’s eating not because he is actually still nervous. “I mean, I’m bringing mine.”

“Where is yours, by the way?” Mark says. “I’m surprised you even had time to eat dinner with me—and Sicheng-hyung said you spent all of lunch with him—”

Jaehyun feels guilty. “I don’t—” He bites off the end of that sentence, which was going to be, “spend all my free time with Taeyong-hyung.” “Sorry, Mark—”

“Jaehyun-hyung, it’s fine. I get it. I’d spend all my free time with Johnny-hyung too, but we’d probably kill each other. I’m shocked you and Taeyong-hyung haven’t, actually. I mean two weeks into _our_ friendship you were ready to strangle me if I didn’t stop rambling all the time when it was just the two of us in the dorm.”

“That’s why we have to hang out on Friday,” Jaehyun says. Fuck, but he’s been a bad friend.

“It’s _fine_ , Jaehyun-hyung,” Mark says. “Honestly. You can keep hanging out with Taeyong-hyung. Go to your Soulmate Night, or whatever. If that even is a real thing.”

“It is!” Jaehyun’s cheeks feel hot. “I swear it is! Every twenty-first of the month! Promise!”

“Uh-huh,” says Mark.

* * *

Jaehyun goes alone to Soulmate Night at Choikang. He feels kind of like an idiot standing there queuing to get in by himself, but the guy from before spots him as he’s in the process of giving his name—not Jeong Yuno; Jaehyun isn’t that much of an idiot—and comes hurrying over, practically bowling over the poor kid manning the front desk. “Yes, hello, hi, Jaehyun-ssi, it’s so good to see you again,” he says, windmill shaking Jaehyun’s extended hand like they’re in North America. “Where is your—Taeyong-ssi?”

Jaehyun’s heart totally doesn’t stutter and his stomach totally doesn’t swoop when hearing the words “your Taeyong-ssi” strung together. “Oh, he had class,” he lies. Taeyong doesn’t have class and Jaehyun knows he doesn’t have class but he let him get away with it because the alternative was unpacking whatever it was that had happened to make Taeyong distant, and Jaehyun doesn’t know if he could bear it. “Sorry it’s just me—is that okay?”

“It’s fine,” the man says, name tag proclaiming him “Cho Kyuhyun.”

Jaehyun tilts his head, trying to place the name. “Hey, don’t you own—”

“Right this way,” Kyuhyun interjects, grabbing a menu and hurrying Jaehyun across the surprisingly crowded floor to an empty table for two.

They pass Chanyeol as they go and the waiter shoots Kyuhyun an amused look. “Your dates didn’t stand you up after all, huh?” he says. “Although you seem to be missing one…”

“Fuck off, Mr. Deadpool,” Kyuhyun says, and then laughs when Chanyeol hurries away, scowling.

“Halloween,” Kyuhyun explains, stopping to pull out Jaehyun’s chair and set down his menu. “We get into the SM party because of Changmin.”

Jaehyun gets the distinct impression that this is the sort of talk that precedes only calamity, but somehow, he manages to nod. “Oh, um, cool.”

“Anyway, I’ll leave you to it,” Kyuhyun says. “Your server will be with you shortly.”

“Are you a host now?” one of the other waiters says on her cross, grinning.

“Fuck off, Qian!” Kyuhyun calls back, but he’s laughing.

Jaehyun still feels kind of like he’s having a crisis because Taeyong has ditched him, but at least Choikang’s atmosphere has significantly brightened his mood. When Qian comes over to take his order, he opts to try something new this time, distracted again by thoughts of Taeyong. Then he’s left alone to wait and pulls out his phone.

`Soulmate Night is a thing`, he texts Mark.

`Pretty sure it’s not, but nice try`, replies Mark.

Jaehyun narrows his eyes, and then glances around before taking a quick shot of the menu and the table.

`That could be anywhere.`

Jaehyun takes a selfie with the menu this time, deer logo on full display.

`Okay, I’m at least convinced you’re at the restaurant. Are you even dressed appropriately?`

Jaehyun put on a dress shirt he bought when shopping with Taeyong, who had a tendency for bold patterns and paying for his dongsaengs when they were distracted by the background music in the mall. `Fuck you. I could be a model.`

`A model idiot`, Mark says in English. `But you really went to Choikang for Soulmate Night? Alone?`

`Taeyong-hyung has a lab.`

`Taeyong-hyung doesn’t have lab on Thursdays`, Mark says. `Last week he helped me with an essay for Creative Writing. And traumatized me with all the latest facts about his and Doyoung-hyung’s carnivorous plants. Did you know that some of them eat rats?`

Jaehyun pulls a face. `Mark. I’m about to be eating.`

`I’m just saying.` Mark’s typing in English again and Jaehyun needs to take Johnny aside and tell him to stop enabling the language switching—it’s exhausting for non-fluent people. `You should get used to it, though. Taeyong-hyung’s your soulmate and Doyoung-hyung is Taeyong-hyung’s.`

Jaehyun pauses. `Taeyong-hyung’s what?`

`Just Taeyong-hyung’s`, Mark says. `Taeyongie-hyung’s Doyoung-hyung.` He pauses. `Is that going too far? Are you going to get jealous? Doyoungie-hyung has Jungwoo-hyung.`

`I’m going to eat now`, Jaehyun says. `I’ll see you when I get back to the dorm.`

`No, wait Jaehyun-hyung, what do you mean Taeyong-hyung has a lab? Is that what he told you? He just texted me back—he’s mooching off Ten-hyung’s Netflix too.`

Jaehyun’s stomach tries to do a dance all around his abdominal cavity. `Oh`, he says. `I don’t know, that’s just what he said.`

`Weird`, Mark says. `I’ll text Doyoung-hyung.`

Wait, Jaehyun types, in time to Qian to come over with his appetizer. He puts his phone away guiltily, abruptly aware of the fact that one of the older couples has been glaring at him this entire time. Jaehyun is tempted to very loudly fake a phone call with someone all the way across the world on another continent, emphasizing the wonders of technology and its ability to connect those who might never meet otherwise. He doesn’t. He eats a breadstick and feels only mildly sorry for himself. Then looks down at his phone. Mark’s contact name is still at the top of his screen, Jaehyun’s half-typed message still loaded into the chat bar. He deletes his entire message, then taps back to stare at Taeyong’s name, sitting just under Mark’s. The last thing there is still from Jaehyun—a reaction to a story Taeyong was telling about Taeil-hyung and his hilarious panic about the fact that his soulmate wasn’t even born when _Star Wars_ came out.

`You weren’t either, Hyung`, was Taeyong’s punchline.

Laughing Apeach emoji, replied Jaehyun.

There’s been nothing since.

* * *

Jaehyun has just finished his appetizer and is sadly staring down the barrel of his main course when Kim Doyoung comes striding across the restaurant being trailed by a nervous looking host—“Kim Jongdae,” the name tag reads.

“Jeong Yuno,” Doyoung says, when he sees Jaehyun. “What are you doing?”

Jaehyun stares up at Doyoung and poor Jongdae, napkin held awkwardly with both hands. “He’s with me,” he tells Jongdae after a minor pause, and the guy goes bowing back to the desk, leaving Doyoung to loom menacingly over Jaehyun’s table. “Uh, Doyoung-hyung,” Jaehyun says. “Hi.”

Doyoung pulls the empty chair back and sits down without even a pause. “What are you doing?” he repeats.

Jaehyun glances around the restaurant like that’ll somehow help. “Eating dinner?” he says. _Alone? Like a sad excuse for a human being?_

Doyoung scowls. “Yah, enough of that,” he scolds. “I’ve had enough moping to last a lifetime.”

Jaehyun tries not to think about what that could mean, wincing.

Doyoung’s eyes narrow. “Because of Taeyong-hyung,” he continues, almost like he’s just waiting for Jaehyun to wince again; Jaehyun does and gets the distinct impression that Doyoung is actually pleased. “In case that was not clear. The source of the moping is Taeyong-hyung.”

“Oh, uh—”

“Why are _you_ moping?” Doyoung keeps going, before Jaehyun can say more. “And eating alone at a restaurant that probably costs more than your part of an apartment would?”

“It—doesn’t,” Jaehyun tries to say, even though that’s true—and he’s stopped looking for jobs, or apartments, and sort of, well, been dreaming about moving in with somebody about to graduate with a degree in art, maybe.

“Uh huh,” says Doyoung. “You keep telling yourself that.”

Jaehyun will, thank you.

“But you’re changing the subject. I’m not Mark Lee. I’m not letting you get away with that.”

Jaehyun is going to kill his roommate. “I’m not changing the subject. I’m just confused why you’re here, Hyung. That’s all.”

Doyoung stares at him with narrowed eyes. “Uh huh,” he says again. “What did you do to Taeyongie?”

Jaehyun feels embarrassed on top of the confusion. “I don’t know,” he says. “Like… I’m in love with him”—oh, _shit_ , Jaehyun has _said it out loud_ and in front of Doyoung, Taeyong’s best friend and roommate to boot—“but I’m respecting his wishes, promise, Doyoungie-hyung, promise.” Jaehyun keeps making eye contact through force of will. “I’m not making a huge deal and I even told him I understand where he’s coming from and I know he doesn’t like me like that and I even told him _I_ don’t like him like that—”

“Hold on, you told him what?”

“—and I—I’m doing my best, Doyoung-hyung, because he’s my soulmate and I thought we could be just friends because he clearly doesn’t like me like that but he’s _my soulmate_ and he’s perfect for me and so funny and smart and his _hands_ —” Jaehyun goes a little misty eyed thinking of Taeyong’s beautiful, beautiful hands and all the art they can create; starts thinking about the sliver of ruby around his pinky that marks him as Jaehyun’s and what Taeyong might taste like, if Jaehyun put a finger in his mouth and _sucked._

“—Jaehyun. Jaehyun. Concentrate—”

Jaehyun snaps back into it.

“—the universe made him for me just for me, Doyoungie-hyung,” he finishes. “The universe made him just for me.” Although maybe the universe made Jaehyun for Taeyong, since Taeyong came first. Maybe the universe took their beautiful, mildly chaotic jumble of a soul and split it between two bodies, two years, two continents, and then added a twenty-three year countdown before they’d even cross paths, then decided that Taeyong would get the short end of the stick and fall out of love with even the idea of soulmates before that countdown finished; let Jaehyun not believe in ghosts or astrology but keep him romantic at the core, hoping, waiting—wanting. “The universe made him just for me, Doyoung-hyung,” Jaehyun says. “And I love him.” It’s only gotten easier for Jaehyun to say it now. “And he doesn’t love me back, but it’s okay. I told him it’s okay.”

There’s a pause, and then Jaehyun smiles.

Doyoung is staring at him with his mouth fallen open and Jaehyun has to fight the urge to put a spoon in it.

“Anyway, so—”

“Yah,” Doyoung says. “Jaehyun-ah. You _idiot_.”

That hadn’t been what Jaehyun was expecting, honestly.

“Jaehyun-ah,” Doyoung says again. “You _idiot_!”

Jaehyun keeps staring, more than a little confused. “Hyung?”

“You _idiot_!” Doyoung says for the third time, loud enough to catch the attention of the judgmental couple from before, who seem thrilled at the opportunity to level more scrutiny on the college student at the five-star restaurant.

“Hyung—”

“You idiot!” Doyoung exclaims, hopefully for a fourth and final time. “You told Taeyong-hyung you weren’t in love with him?”

Jaehyun closes his mouth on more questions, even more confused. “Yes?” he says finally.

“Idiot!” says Doyoung. “Taeyong-hyung is _in love with you_!”

Jaehyun stares.

“Taeyong-hyung is currently lying upside down on our couch staring at his soul string like it holds the answers to the universe,” Doyoung continues. “And it does—because you are the answer to his universe, but you’re both too fucking _stupid_ to realize that!”

Jaehyun feels like he should be offended on his behalf, if not Taeyong’s. “Hey—”

“You—there’s not such thing as ‘Soulmate Night,’ Jaehyun-ah!” Doyoung continues, air quoting the whole sentence. “It was a joke! The assholes who work here made it up because”—he finally seems to remember that they’re in public because he lowers his voice—“U-know Yunho might have shown up!”

Jaehyun keeps staring at Doyoung, then looks rapidly around the restaurant as if daring someone to confirm. “How do you—”

“Youngho-hyung used to work here!” answers Doyoung. “Also, Jaehyun, what the fuck is ‘Soulmate Night’ anyway like the two of you still had to pay.”

Jaehyun is still reeling from the earlier conversation bomb but he manages rather valiantly to try to protest. “Well how did I get a table tonight—”

“I saved you one,” says Kyuhyun, appearing out of literally nowhere and shooting Jaehyun an apologetic look. “I just love love. And you have the same name as Changmin’s—”

Shim Changmin appears almost as out of nowhere as Kyuhyun had, and takes the man by the right ear, scowling. “For the last time. You will not use his name in this establishment—”

“Right, in Choikang we only refer to him as the voice of the nation,” Kyuhyun says.

Shim Changmin looks about seconds from an aneurysm, and then he and Kyuhyun round a corner and are gone.

“I—” says Jaehyun.

Doyoung reaches out and steals one of Jaehyun’s breadsticks. “Idiots, the both of you,” he says happily. “Now go fucking tell him you love him too, so he stops sulking around our apartment. It’s putting Hershel off his dinner.”

Jaehyun doesn’t want to know who Hershel is. “You’re sure he likes me?” he says.

Doyoung looks at Jaehyun like Jaehyun is a lesser life form. “Jaehyun-ah,” he says. “You are _an idiot_.”

“Right,” Jaehyun says. “Right. Yes. Right. I. Fuck.” He feels like he’s cycling through at least five different emotions and he hasn’t actually managed to eat his dinner so he feels really fucking lightheaded but already he can see Qian making her way over to him with a box, so. “I’m—I should—” Qian bypasses him without even looking, and Jaehyun fights the urge to scream because he’s clearly lost all common sense. “What should I do, Doyoung—”

“Jaehyun-hyung! Doyoung-hyung! Thank God! No, I’m with them! Hyung!”

Jaehyun turns to look at the front of the restaurant to find Mark, standing in front of a panicked looking Jongdae and waving. Jongdae looks at Jaehyun (who smiles and nods that he’s with him too), and then gestures for Mark to pass.

Doyoung stands. “And that’s my cue. Keep in mind what I said. Mark-yah! Look alive!” He tosses something in Mark’s direction as he goes, and Jaehyun has a moment of true horror when he realizes it’s a pair of Mark’s _boxers_. “You left those at Johnny-hyung’s and he told me to give them to you when I saw you next.” Doyoung doesn’t even seem bothered by the despair dawning on Mark’s face, continuing to talk without a care in the world. “I don’t know why he couldn’t just give them to you himself—he’d obviously see you sooner—but I’m guessing he’s still mad from that time Jungwoo and I moved all of his furniture a centimeter to the left; it served him right; he fucking _left me in a Shinsaegae._ ” He reaches the front of the restaurant and smiles at Jongdae. “Bye, Hyung, say hi to Baekhyun-hyung for me.” And then he’s gone, leaving Mark standing in front of Jaehyun’s table clutching his underwear, and Jaehyun seated at his table staring at Mark clutching his underwear, entirely without words.

“I understand why he’s Jungwoo-hyung’s soulmate, now,” Mark says finally, sinking slowly down into Doyoung’s empty chair—Taeyong’s empty chair, Jaehyun’s heart points out tetchily. Taeyong who… didn’t come, but who Doyoung says likes Jaehyun… loves him.

“Mark-yah,” Jaehyun says. “Do you really think Taeyong-hyung likes me?”

Mark stares at Jaehyun for a long moment, then seems to realize he should at least put his boxers somewhere out of sight, and stuffs them into his sweatshirt pocket. He is _not_ dressed for Choikang, and Jaehyun should probably be embarrassed by that. “How old are you again?” says Mark.

Jaehyun flushes. “Shut up.”

“Hyung, _he’s your soulmate_ ,” Mark says. “You—you have the same favorite restaurant. you have the same weird ass sense of humor—”

“Hey!”

“He fucking held your hand the entire time we were at Lotte World—”

“I’m amazed you remembered anything past having Johnny-hyung’s tongue in your mouth from Lotte World—”

“Talk to me when you have a soulmate who will put their tongue in your mouth—”

“Mark!”

“I fucking _Parent Trap_ -ed you!” Mark says, ignoring Jaehyun’s protests. “‘Do I think Taeyong-hyung likes you’? Gee, Jaehyun-hyung, what reason could I possibly have to believe that? You only have his name written on your finger!” He reaches out to pick up Jaehyun’s left hand and gives it a shake.

Jaehyun stares at Mark.

Jaehyun stares down at his soul string.

Jaehyun feels faint.

“Mark,” Jaehyun says.

“Yeah?” Mark gives Jaehyun’s hand another shake.

“I know what I need to do.”

Mark looks ecstatic “Yes! Finally!” he says, letting go of Jaehyun’s hand and punching the air. “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. You were saying?”

“I’m going to scale Taeyongie-hyung’s _building_ ,” Jaehyun says.

“Yes—what?” says Mark.

“Like _Romeo and Juliet_ ,” Jaehyun says. Arguably he should pick _Much Ado About Nothing_ —a play about Beatrice and Benedick; two literal soulmates who, for some reason, were in denial for _most of the play_ , honestly, the nerve—but there’s no building scaling in _Much Ado About Nothing_ and Jaehyun really thinks that he needs to scale a building. Like. Jaehyun is, possibly, running mostly on idiocy at this point, but he thinks it’s a great idea.

“You—what?” says Mark.

“I’m going to go _right now_ —”

“Wait—Jaehyun-hyung—let’s think this through—”

Jaehyun pushes his chair back from the table deciding he doesn’t need a box for his uneaten meal, or to pay. “I’m going to memorize the speech,” Jaehyun says. “Or I’ll read it off my phone. It’s probably fine if I read it off my phone, right? Maybe I can project it. Make index cards. Have you got index cards? I need index cards.”

“You—you need to pay for your food—Jaehyun-hyung—wait!”

But Jaehyun isn’t listening, already planning the moment in his mind.

“Jaehyun-hyung,” he hears Mark say. “You can’t—you can’t scale a building!”

Jaehyun turns furious eyes on Mark and then takes him by both arms. “Mark Lee,” he says, shaking him once for emphasis. “Taeyongie-hyung is worth it.”

Mark’s mouth opens and closes several times. “Worth what?” he says finally.

“The unnecessarily cheesy romance,” Jaehyun says, with gravitas. “He’ll love it. It’s romantic.”

“It’s dangerous!” Mark says. “Hyung, at least order a trampoline or something!”

Jaehyun mulls that over. “Okay, fair,” he says. “Taeyongie would be really upset if I broke my arm mid-sonnet. Do you think we can order one online? I think we can order one online. Let’s go home and order one online right now—do you have data? Let me use your data.”

Mark shakes his head at him, looking like he might start laughing. “You’re insane,” he says finally. “You’re completely and utterly insane.”

“I’m in love,” Jaehyun corrects, affronted. “Now are you going to help me buy a trampoline, or not?”

* * *

“This is a really bad idea,” Mark says.

Jaehyun drops the trampoline onto the sidewalk outside Taeyong’s apartment building and looks up, squinting. Doyoung and Taeyong don’t live on a high floor or anything, so it’s not too bad, but even Jaehyun has to admit—this might be too much. He’s athletic and not one to back down from a challenge and it’s _Romeo and Juliet_ , a Shakespeare play, when he and Taeyong only got close because of their Shakespeare elective. It’s the right thing to do—the romantic thing to do—but Jaehyun has never scaled a building before, and he’s not sure where to even start. “Huh,” he says, looking up at the wall. “Huh.”

“Jaehyun-hyung,” Mark says.

“It’ll be fine, Mark,” Jaehyun says, swinging his arms behind himself a few times to loosen up. “I even brought that trampoline you suggested and everything.”

Mark pauses. “We bought this on Amazon,” he says.

Jaehyun appraises the wall again.

Mark clearly starts to panic. “Oh my God, you’re actually going to do it. Look—Jaehyun-hyung, I get you want to be romantic, but this is _not the way_. Couldn’t you have just bought flowers? Or invested in, I don’t know, _skywriting_? Not—shit— _scaling a building_ —”

Jaehyun wonders if he should do a running jump or something. Maybe he should have bought climbing gear.

“—shit, shit, shit, listen, don’t move, I’m. I’m calling Doyoung-hyung— _Doyoung-hyung please buzz us into your building Jaehyun-hyung is going to climb your building_!”

Jaehyun pauses, still positioned to run at said building.

“ _I don’t know why—he said it’s romantic—something about_ Romeo and Juliet— _listen, just, buzz us in_ —”

The door to the apartment complex clicks open and Mark abruptly breaks out into praise, darting forward so he can grab the door before it locks again.

“Great, thanks. We’ll be right up—uh, we have a trampoline—”

Jaehyun stares down at the abandoned bit of gymnastics equipment, and sighs. “You’re the one who bought it,” he tells Mark, and then crosses the threshold with as much dignity as he can manage.

“Hang on—Jaehyun-hyung— _I bought it_ _for you_ —not you, Doyoung-hyung, sorry—Jaehyun-hyung!”

Jaehyun leaves Mark stumbling under the weight of the trampoline and also trying to simultaneously get into the building, heading towards the elevators. He hadn’t really dressed the part. Like, he’d put on real people clothes, obviously, and he’d brushed his hair—his skin had never given him a problem prior to this moment not counting the day the and Taeyong first met so he hadn’t done more than moisturize that morning—but he’d kind of been counting on the dramatics of climbing up to Taeyong’s window. Knocking on the door saying “Taeyong-hyung, Taeyong-hyung, wherefore art thou Taeyong-hyung?” just doesn’t have the same affect, Jaehyun thinks. He should have rung the buzzer. He could have said the thing while ringing the buzzer. He turns. “Mark-yah—”

His roommate finishes hefting the trampoline onto the ground at their feet, red-faced and huffing. “You are the worst hyung,” Mark says. “I hate you. I hope Taeyong-hyung rejects you and you die alone.”

Normally Jaehyun wouldn’t be bothered by that sort of trash talk. He’d give it back as good as he got, throw in a few colorful insults about the state of Mark’s virginity (tragically gone, given he’s found his soulmate; the fucker), really give it to him right. But normally, Jaehyun isn’t running on the fumes of a badly bungled love confession, about to _Romeo and Juliet_ style try again. So he. There might be tears.

“Oh, _fuck_ , Jaehyun-hyung, look, it’ll be okay.” Mark crosses to press the button for the elevator. “You’ll be fine. He’s in love with you. You—you just focus on that speech.”

Jaehyun stares at Mark with huge eyes. “That speech?”

The elevator opens. “‘That what we call a rose’ and shit.”

Jaehyun stares harder.

Mark shoves him into the elevator, blushing. “What? I read.” He follows Jaehyun inside.

Jaehyun watches him hit the button for Taeyong and Doyoung’s floor.

“Johnny-hyung might have… uh… there was a pool.” The doors close, and they lurch up a floor.

Jaehyun steps out the elevator doors and into the hall, gaping. “You turned twenty-one in _August_ ,” he manages.

Mark juts his chin out stubbornly. “Just because you took”—he actually counts on his _fucking fingers_ —“four months to get your shit together doesn’t mean everyone else did. Also it wasn’t—SM U has a pool—”

Jaehyun puts fingers in both ears. “Please do not talk to me about all the pool-sex you and Johnny-hyung have been having on campus, Mark,” he says, loudly, in time for a woman to come out of the apartment next to Taeyong’s with a child on one hip. “I do not want to hear _any details_.”

Mark immediately starts panic laughing, which does nothing to help the situation. “No wait,” he says as the woman moves down the hallway at a considerably faster pace. “We’re soulmates—”

The door to Doyoung and Taeyong’s apartment comes open as if summoned, revealing Doyoung, who looks around at the hallway and seems to take immediate stock of the situation. “Please stop traumatizing my neighbors Mark Lee. I like them. They say hi to me every morning when I leave the building.”

“I’m not—” Mark begins, but then gives in. “Sorry.”

Doyoung turns his eyes on Jaehyun next. “Oh, it’s _you_ ,” he says. “Taeyong-hyung! Your destiny has come calling!”

There’s the sound of a scramble from within the apartment, and then the telltale thud that can only be Taeyong hitting the floor, given the audible groan that accompanies it. “Ow,” Jaehyun hears the other half of his soul say.

The smile Doyoung levels at Jaehyun is radiant. “Do come in,” he says, and ushers the both of them into the apartment, pausing to watch them peel off their shoes.

Taeyong is lying in the center of the living room beside the couch, looking unfairly attractive in an oversized t-shirt and skinny jeans with two gaping holes across both knees. His hair looks freshly washed and is the color of honey. He’s staring vacantly up at the ceiling. Jaehyun wants to _Sleeping Beauty_ -style kiss him, and he’s not even sleeping.

“Hi,” Jaehyun hears himself say. “Hi—Taeyongie—”

“That’s not in the play, Jaehyun-hyung,” says Mark.

“The play?” says Doyoung-hyung?

“ _Romeo and Juliet_ ,” says Mark. “Jaehyun-hyung was going to scale the building like _Romeo and Juliet_.”

Doyoung blinks. “Was there building scaling in _Romeo and Juliet_ —”

“You don’t live on the ground floor—”

“Do you two _mind_?” Jaehyun says, glaring at both of them in turn, then looking pointedly at the motionless expanse of Taeyong, still spread eagled against the wooden floorboards, watching the two of them like they’re a tennis match.

Doyoung goes to sit down at one of their kitchen stools. “This is my apartment,” he says. He points at Mark. “You live in a freshman dorm. I’m not leaving my apartment to go hang out in a freshman dorm just because Taeyong-hyung is finally going to get some.”

There is a strangled noise from where Taeyong is laid out on the floor, but when Jaehyun looks at him his expression is unreadable. He turns back to Mark and Doyoung.

Mark is nodding. “What he said.”

“It’s not your apartment?” tries Jaehyun.

“I bought you a trampoline,” says Mark.

“A trampoline?” Doyoung looks up from where he’d been picking at his nails with great interest.

“Yes, for when Jaehyun-hyung was going to scale your building,” Mark tells him eagerly. “For safety.”

“Ah, makes sense,” says Doyoung, and then raises both hands, expression showing just how little sense he actually thinks it makes.

“I know,” says Mark. “I tried to explain—”

“Can you two just—” Jaehyun starts, voice cracking in the middle. “Be quiet, at least?”

Doyoung mimes zipping his lips shut.

Mark follows suit.

Jaehyun turns back to face Taeyong. Taeyong waits a moment, and then turns his own head to face Jaehyun. “Taeyong-hyung—” His voice cracks again but he rallies. “Taeyong-hyung wherefore art thou—wait—that’s wrong—hold on—” He consults his hand, where he’s written the damn words, only he can’t read his own handwriting and he’s sweating, which is odd, given Jaehyun has never been one for stage fright. “A Taeyong-hyung by any other name would smell as sweet—”

There is a strangled noise from the peanut gallery but Jaehyun is _not looking_.

“That’s wrong too, uh—”

“‘But soft, what light through yonder window breaks,’” interrupts Taeyong calmly, without any inflection and without looking away from Jaehyun’s panicked gaze. “‘It is the east, and Jeong Jaehyun is the sun.’”

There is silence in the apartment. Then, Doyoung gets to his feet. His phone chirps. “That’ll be Jungwoo,” he says, reaching for a conveniently placed coat lying across the back of the other kitchen chair. “I’m out. Be safe, Taeyong-hyung, remember to use a condom and at least three fingers.”

There is another one of those pained sounding noises, only this time Jaehyun thinks it definitely comes out of his own mouth. He can’t do anything about it, though, and so he just stands there, watching, as Doyoung finishes dressing for November, and grabs Mark by the bicep.

“Have fun,” Doyoung says over his shoulder as he goes, and then pulls Jaehyun’s sputtering roommate out of the apartment. “Please don’t scar Hershel! You know how he gets!” Doyoung calls before the door slams closed.

Jaehyun listens to the sound of him and Mark making sure everyone has keys and phones before they both move off.

“So,” Taeyong says finally, breaking the silence. He hasn’t gotten up yet, but he looks a little less emotionless now. There are twin splashes of heat across both of his cheeks and color burning on the tips of his ears. His hair is definitely damp and his shirt is definitely too oversized for company.

“So,” Jaehyun agrees awkwardly, picking at the hem of his own shirt.

“You were going to scale my building,” Taeyong says.

Jaehyun feels heat blaze across the tips of his own ears. “I thought it would be romantic,” he mutters.

Taeyong sits up. The shirt is even worse when he does so because it falls around his collarbones in a way that is really fucking attractive. “You probably would have fallen and died,” he says.

Jaehyun shouldn’t make a bad joke. “Hey,” he says. “I wouldn’t have died.”

Taeyong pauses in straightening his shirt and finally stands, stretching to his full height. Somehow that’s the worst so far, because now Jaehyun can look him right in his beautiful eyes, has to be faced with his perfectly shaped brows, and wants to take his wonderful, wonderful mouth. It’s distracting. It’s not helpful. Jaehyun sways closer because he can’t help himself. “Hey, so,” Taeyong says. “Why were you trying to be romantic?”

Jaehyun manages to come to a halt. “I lied,” he says. Taeyong’s not wearing a ring. Taeyong never wears a ring. For how much fuss Taeyong’s made about soulmates (and justifiably, of course, fuck those teenagers), Taeyong’s never once tried to hide his soul string, or Jaehyun’s names.

Taeyong is looking at Jaehyun with obvious confusion.

“I do believe in soulmates,” Jaehyun says. “I do—like you,” Jaehyun says.

Taeyong’s eyes go very round. “Oh,” he says. “Me too. Like you, I mean.” For two moments, they just stare at each other. Then Taeyong says, “So are we… just going to… like… stop pretending and go on a real date, first, or…”

“Taeyong-ah,” Jaehyun says. “I’ve wanted to get your tongue in my mouth since pretty much the moment you were yelling at me in Starbucks.”

Taeyong’s throat bobs. “Oh,” he says. “Cool.”

And then they meet in the middle, slamming into each other in a way that shouldn’t work, shouldn’t be nice, shouldn’t end without headbutting, seeing stars in a bad way, and the moment well and truly ruined. But maybe it’s because they’re supposed to be the same soul, the same person, two faces, four arms, four legs, etc, etc., because they _don’t_ butt heads. They don’t see stars (in a bad way). They don’t ruin the moment. Jaehyun gets his hands on Taeyong’s bare arms and his mouth on Taeyong’s glorious jaw and it’s like coming home or being made anew. “Fuck,” Jaehyun says, in between bites along Taeyong’s jugular, spreading his fingers to knead at Taeyong’s biceps. “I don’t—I’m not two people—”

“Jaehyun-ah,” Taeyong breathes, groping Jaehyun right back (fingers already under Jaehyun’s shirt, thigh already between Jaehyun’s legs, breath warm against Jaehyun’s cheek). “What are you talking about?”

Jaehyun pulls away from his neck and has to take a moment, very much overcome. “You and me,” he mumbles. “We’re not the same person. We’re not… one thing.”

Taeyong raises his right hand, palm towards Jaehyun and soul string practically glimmering. “Are you sure?” he says. “This says otherwise—”

“That—” Jaehyun breaks off and then lifts his own hand, touching their palms together and then linking all their fingers so that their pinkies nudge up against each other and interlock, names touching. He feels tingly, like Taeyong has reached down into his chest and touched his very soul. “That just means you’re _made for me_ , Taeyong-hyung.”

Taeyong holds Jaehyun’s hand back extra tight. “Are you sure?” he says. “Technically I was born first.”

Jaehyun stifles a laugh. “God, you’re so—” _Made for me._

“So?” Taeyong is teasing him, unbelievable eyebrows waggling.

“Fucking _kiss_ _me_ some more,” Jaehyun starts to demand, angling towards the couch—he’d like a bed, but the couch will do; he’s staring to feel lightheaded as all his blood goes south, cock full and throbbing between his legs and a reminder that while this might all be only the thing he’s being waiting for for his entire life, but also that Jaehyun is twenty-three and a _virgin_ , out of his depth and so wanting he’s nearly _dizzy_. His gaze catches on something; his thoughts immediately go scattering. “Hyung,” he says, pulling away from Taeyong’s mouth.

“Yeah? Why’d you stop?”

“What’s that?” Jaehyun says, holding tight to Taeyong in case he tries to flee with one hand, but pointing with the other.

Taeyong twists to follow his gaze. “That’s Hershel,” he says. “Doyoungie’s Venus flytrap.”

Jaehyun gives the thing a once over, then glances at the couch. “Bed,” he decides. “Absolutely bed.”

Taeyong winces. “It won’t fit—”

“Bed,” Jaehyun repeats, staring to herd him towards the hallway, noticing that Hershel isn’t the only carnivorous vegetation in the living area, and doing his best to avoid the others too. “It can’t be worse than the couch and I—” He lowers his voice, glancing. “They’re fucking _looking at me_ , Hyung.”

Taeyong lets Jaehyun crowd him into his hallway without pause. “They don’t have eyes, Jaehyun-ah.”

Jaehyun shoots him an ugly look, finding the door with the sign hanging on it that proclaims it Taeyong’s in highly stylized calligraphy. “Do you want in my ass or not?”

Taeyong stumbles in the process of crossing the threshold. “Oh, are we, you mean—”

“Taeyong-ah,” Jaehyun says, in an overt repetition of moments earlier. “I have wanted to ride you into a mattress since the moment I saw you hit a bullseye at the sports competition.”

Taeyong’s pupils dilate. “That was September.”

“You look really good in pink,” Jaehyun says.

“Have you—since _September_?”

“Taeyongie-hyung,” Jaehyun says, pushing him pointedly back towards his unmade bed. “Stop thinking about the past.”

Taeyong’s thighs hit the side of his bed and his nostrils flare, his chin coming up and his head falling back. Then he meets Jaehyun’s eyes and pointedly lets himself fall back onto the mattress, sinking down so that he’s sitting, leaving him considerably shorter than Jaehyun. “Well?” He quirks one unfair eyebrow. “Have at it.”

Jaehyun stares down at him and wants to, means to, will do, just—it’s his first time, and he’s—never outside of porn—and— There’s no easy way to say all that, though, so Jaehyun decides he’s better off taking his shirt off as a distraction. Technically they’ve spoken about it but maybe Taeyong was distracted or forgot. Jaehyun is not above using his body to his advantage, even if he still may be a little shy since he mostly goes to the gym with Johnny now (and hadn’t that been an exercise in look but don’t touch; you’re in love with his best friend and your roommate is the _other half of his soul_ ).

“Jaehyunnie,” Taeyong says.

Jaehyun shoots his shirt into Taeyong’s laundry basket with ease and then pads further into the room in just his socks and jeans, coming to a stop directly in front of Taeyong. Taeyong has to tilt his entire head back to keep eye contact, and his jaw is _unreal_. It makes Jaehyun feel foggy and hazy and more nervous, but he climbs onto the bed and into Taeyong’s lap regardless. “Let’s not—”

“Jaehyun-ah,” says Taeyong. “How long were you waiting for me?”

Jaehyun puts his hands on Taeyong’s shoulders and stares down at the slope of his nose. “Technically the universe made you first, so you were waiting for me,” he says.

Taeyong shifts to make eye contact, resting surprisingly warm palms on Jaehyun’s rapidly cooling, bare hips. “But I wasn’t,” he says quietly. “I dated other people. Kissed other people. Tried to make myself fall in love with other people.”

Jaehyun moves forward to kiss him so that he’ll stop looking quite so sorry for himself, but misses, because he’s never kissed someone before. Not everyone waits like this anymore, in 2019, and Jaehyun certainly bore the brunt of the teasing for his own abstinence. He was handsome, he was athletic, he was waiting for someone whose name could only belong to a boy, unless their parents were particularly forward thinking. But he was, at his core, a romantic—is a romantic—and Jaehyun’s fucking _new_ to all this. “Fuck,” he says. “Even Mark Lee—”

“Mark didn’t have any baggage holding him back,” interrupts Taeyong, understanding Jaehyun instantly. “Jaehynnie—”

“I’m ruining the mood,” Jaehyun says. He shifts forward again and tries to kiss Taeyong but this time Taeyong is the reason their lips don’t connect, turning so that Jaehyun gets a cheek instead of his mouth.

“Jaehyun-ah.”

“I love you,” Jaehyun says. “I love you and you’re _mine_ and I _want you_.” He rocks down into Taeyong’s lap so that what he means by that is perfectly clear, and then gets incredibly distracted by how good that feels, grinding backwards and forward until his jaw hurts, he’s clenching his teeth so hard. “Fuck—”

“I love you too.” Taeyong’s voice has gone raspy and his eyes are twin black holes again, but in a good way, not like he’s going to leave Jaehyun stranded in the middle of a Starbucks. “I love you too and you’re _mine_ , too, Jaehyun-ah. Yuno-yah—”

Jaehyun shudders and shoves a hand over Taeyong’s mouth just to get him to stop talking, then has to pause with his fingers spread across Taeyong’s chin and nose, breathing hard. “Taeyong—Taeyongie-hyung—”

With infinite patience, Taeyong slowly turns his head to the right, dragging heated breath along the pads of Jaehyun’s fingers, stopping when he reaches Jaehyun’s pinky.

“Oh God,” Jaehyun is only able to say, as Taeyong’s tongue curls slowly around his finger, tracing the line of scarlet wrapped around the base that ties their souls back together. He’s—Taeyong’s—Taeyong’s looking at him through his lashes, cheeks hollowed in as he _sucks_ , pulling away in a move that really leaves nothing to the imagination. Jaehyun feels his dick give an answering throb, hot and hard up against the seam of his jeans.

“Jaehyunnie-yah,” says Taeyong. “There’s no right way—”

“Fuck me,” Jaehyun says. “I want you to fuck me.”

“It would be easier to do it the other way around.”

The imagery of that is enough to make Jaehyun groan, forcing him to bend forward and hide his face in Taeyong’s neck with the crown of his head tucked up against Taeyong chin. “No,” he manages. “No, later, after, I need to know—” He wants to put Taeyong on his front and fuck him senseless, make _love_ to him, but he wants to know what it feels like first, wants to learn the ins and outs and get the full picture. Jaehyun likes to be good at things; Jaehyun wants to be good at things; Jaehyun wants to be good for _Taeyong_.

Taeyong tips his head up so that they’re looking at each other, searching each other’s eyes. Whatever he finds must be enough, because he leans in and finally kisses Jaehyun. There are no fireworks and it’s much more anticlimactic than Jaehyun really thinks it ought to be, given the fuss people have been making about “the first kiss,” but it’s Taeyong—Taeyong’s mouth on Jaehyun’s; Taeyong’s tongue meeting Jaehyun’s; Taeyong’s breath mingling with Jaehyun’s.

Jaehyun goes weightless and never wants to stop.

“Okay,” Taeyong says when they finally pull apart and separate, chests heaving. “And I’m guessing you want to do it like this?” He’s got his hands back on Jaehyun’s waist and he presses down against the bones there to help make his point.

Jaehyun’s hips fuck forward in a way that feels utterly reflexive—sense memory—operant conditioning. “Why, would it be easier the other way around?”

“Probably,” Taeyong says. “On your _back_ —”

Jaehyun squirms, already antsy for it. “But I,” he says. “Riding you into your mattress.”

Taeyong kisses him again; a quick press of lips that silences Jaehyun immediately. “You’re awfully particular, for a virgin, Jaehyunnie-yah,” he says.

Jaehyun glares at him, putting a hand in the center of his chest and pushing. “You’re wearing way too many clothes,” he says.

Taeyong lets Jaehyun shove him back down onto the bed. “True,” he says. “You have an outie belly button.” It’s the first sign that Taeyong’s as nervous as Jaehyun is, and Jaehyun barks out into startled laughter before he can stop himself.

He glances down at the expanse of his own chest like some sort of idiot. He knows he has an outie belly button, has only ever had an outie belly button, thinks maybe, at one point, it had to have come up in casual conversation because it’s one of those things Mark likes to tease him about. “You have—nipples,” Jaehyun says, because Taeyong has finally taken his t-shirt off. Now they’re both just in jeans, Taeyong bracketed against his bedsheets looking like a wet dream come true.

“Jaehyun, come here,” Taeyong says, jaw angling like he’s waiting for more kisses.

Jaehyun pauses, uncertain. “Hyung—”

“Come here,” Taeyong orders again, and this time Jaehyun does, dropping onto his hands and knees and yelping when Taeyong grabs him by the shoulders and hauls him up so that he’s lying all the way on top of Taeyong, staring down into his eyes and breathing hard through his nose. “You’re thinking too hard—”

“I’m—”

“Made for me,” says Taeyong, and kisses him again.

It takes no time to get naked. Taeyong’s jeans come off surprisingly easy for having been painted on and Jaehyun’s are his favorite, well-worn pair. They lose their socks and shimmy out of their underwear and then Taeyong gets his hand wrapped around Jaehyun’s dick. He licks his palm and wets his fingers and it’s not enough and too fast and hurts a little, because of the drag but Jaehyun _likes it_ ; hisses through it and finally leaves Taeyong’s mouth alone long enough to suck bruises into his unfairly sharp jawline. There is lube and condoms and three fingers, pressed up against Jaehyun’s prostate in a longer amount of time than porn told Jaehyun was supposed to be realistic. There is kissing and groaning and through it all Taeyong’s eyes, boring holes in Jaehyun down to what feels like his marrow.

“Should I—I shouldn’t make a joke, right?” Jaehyun says, feeling stuffed full with only the tip of Taeyong’s cock, thighs shaking as he does his best to listen and not just sit right down immediately, as his competitive streak insists. “About—fuck”—Taeyong’s wrapped his hand around Jaehyun’s dick again, rubbing in circles about the base and then flicking his wrist so that each stroke ends unsatisfyingly shy of the head—“us becoming one again.”

Jaehyun sinks another few centimeters down with a sigh, head falling forward to land chin against his chest with a thud. He’s still wearing the necklace his mother bought him when he got into SM U; the one that matches Taeyong’s, because they were both into Louis Vuitton in 2017. They could have met then, but then, Jaehyun was only twenty-one in 2017, and much less patient. Jaehyun wouldn’t change anything about how they met. Not—fuck—one thing—

His ass meets Taeyong’s upper thighs and he has to take a moment to just stare down at where Taeyong is still stroking Jaehyun’s cock, red and throbbing and no less hard, for how awkward getting ready to put a dick in his ass turned out to be. (They used a lot of lube and Taeyong said a lot of things and Jaehyun decided that his next course of action was going to be an excessive amount of fingering practice, both because it felt _really fucking good_ , and also he really wanted to reduce Taeyong to whimpering because it was only fair; Jaehyun never thought of himself as someone who’d beg so easy, but then, Taeyong is his soulmate.)

“I don’t think this is what people had in mind when they say we’re two halves of the same soul,” says Taeyong. He’s taken his hand off of Jaehyun’s cock and is staring up at him with his mouth open, eyes enormous.

Jaehyun whines. “Why’d you stop?” Then he grinds his hips in circles trying to get used to being full, trying to find the perfect angle, and hit that perfect spot.

“I want you to come only on my cock,” Taeyong says, in time with a thrust of his own hips, and Jaehyun’s vision whites out a little.

“What the fuck?” he manages. “Do that again and I will—”

“You will regardless,” Taeyong says, and lifts off the bed using only abdominal strength and one hand, the other reaching out to hold Jaehyun by the back of the neck. “Now I believe you said something about riding?”

Jaehyun blinks down at him and starts to rise and fall, hissing a little as he gets used to the stretch and burn. “How are you going to keep me from touching—”

Taeyong tightens his grip on Jaehyun’s neck and then pulls, so that they both go back down onto the bed, Jaehyun’s arms wheeling to keep from falling face first into Taeyong’s chest. He’s not entirely sure how it happens, but when he manages to get his breath back, Taeyong’s cock is somehow deeper than it had been before, and Taeyong’s got his right hand circling both Jaehyun’s wrists, holding his arms behind his back. “Is this okay?”

Jaehyun _moans_ , so turned on he can’t see straight, and tries to fuck his hips back so that he can get more friction. “Taeyong-hyung,” he says, around a sob. “Taeyong-hyung.”

Taeyong lets go of Jaehyun’s wrists but Jaehyun leaves his arms where Taeyong put them regardless and goes pliantly where he guides him. His mind is a wash of need.

“How did you—”

“You’re returning the favor,” Taeyong says, holding Jaehyun by the back of the neck again and smirking. “And I’ve changed my mind about the riding.”

“What—” Jaehyun breaks off to swear profusely as Taeyong rolls them, his dick slipping free for a few seconds before he gets his bearings and leaves Jaehyun where he’s landed with his back against the bed.

“Maybe next time,” Taeyong, says, sliding back home without pausing. “Or I’ll ride you. It’s your first time, Jaehyun-ah—”

“Fuck you,” Jaehyun manages, feeling exposed, and turned on, and like his ears might burn off.

“Yes, that is what we were talking about—”

“You wait until I’m better at sex, Hyung,” Jaehyun hisses, giving in and hooking his legs around Taeyong’s hips and leaning up so that he can get close enough to kiss him. “You wait—”

“You’re already good at sex, Jaehyun-ah,” Taeyong says breathlessly. “You were made for me—”

“You were made for _me_ ,” Jaehyun corrects, and kisses him. He does come untouched. He comes wailing for it, one hand over his eyes and the other linked with Taeyong’s—the right and the left— their soul strings pressed right up against each other, their names bleeding into one. He comes and he sees stars and he feels entirely remade, like he and Taeyong really are the same creature, forced to live in two different homes. “Shit,” Jaehyun says, after. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Taeyong agrees, and then kisses him some more.

“So… to be clear,” Jaehyun says, after even that, when they’ve tied off the condom and climbed back into the disarray of Taeyong’s bed; when they’re lying curled underneath his comforter and Taeyong keeps tracing art against Jaehyun’s throat and collarbone; when Jaehyun keeps losing his train of thought, because Taeyong is right handed and his soul string keeps flashing as he draws. “We’re dating now, right?”

Taeyong pauses in the middle of what looks like an ieung—he’s been writing _Jeong Taeyong_ rather clumsily in hangul right across Jaehyun’s heart for what feels like hours. “Jaehyun-ah,” he says. “Jeong Jaehyun. Jeong Yuno.” He grins. “ _Barista-ssi_. We’re not ‘dating.’ We’re _soulmates_.”

And Jaehyun thinks it’s only fair that he immediately bucks the man off of himself so that he can pin him to the bed and tickle him until he begs for mercy.

* * *

The next morning, they run into Doyoung on their way out of the building to go get breakfast. They’re holding hands, Jaehyun has borrowed an entire outfit of Taeyong’s clothes, and Doyoung takes one look and starts clapping. “Yay,” he says. “Good. I’m glad—happy for you, and everything. You didn’t scar Hershel, did you?”

Taeyong flips him off.

“Good,” Doyoung says again. “By the way, your trampoline is still by the elevators, Jaehyun,” he adds. “Hong-eomeonim asked if it was mine, and I told her it was your _soulmate’s_ , Taeyongie-hyung.”

For some reason Taeyong is staring at Doyoung like this is the worst kind of betrayal.

“No doubt she’s already told your mother.”

“Doyoung-ah!”

“Happy Sunday,” Doyoung continues, then leaves.

Taeyong stares after him with his mouth open, before turning accusatory eyes on Jaehyun.

Jaehyun lets go of his hand and tries to pull away. “What? Don’t look at me. I thought it would be romantic! I told you I thought it would be romantic!”

“In what universe is a trampoline going to keep you from falling and breaking your neck while scaling a building, Jaehyun-ah!”

Jaehyun starts backing away. “I didn’t actually scale the building—”

“My mother is never going to let me live this down,” Taeyong continues, advancing forward.

Jaehyun keeps going until Taeyong has him basically pinned to the wall beside the elevator. “I mean, you’ve met _my_ mom,” he says. “She knows you’re my soulmate.”

“The summer I officially ‘came out’”—Taeyong rolls his eyes and makes finger quotes, because, his name was always a boy’s too—“she joined one of those parent groups and started bringing me home pamphlets about _threesomes_ , Jaehyun-ah,” he says. “She’s going to think you’re two people.”

Jaehyun mulls that one over, doing his best not to have a terrible overaction to that. He’s not two people and he’s both of the names on Taeyong’s soul string and under twenty four hours ago he had Taeyong’s cock in his ass, Taeyong’s mouth on his dick, Taeyong’s hands intertwined with his.

He still wants to fight his legal name.

“Oh, you’re going to be one of _those_ ,” Taeyong says finally, like Jaehyun can’t see how his eyes have darkened, his breathing has picked up, and his ears are blushing.

“Shut up, you like it,” Jaehyun says.

“I like you,” Taeyong says, and kisses him.

They do eventually separate and get in the elevator. They do eventually happen upon the trampoline, which Taeyong forces Jaehyun to carry the entire trek across town and to campus, meeting all the taken-aback gazes with a bright smile and a wave. “He’s my boyfriend, my soulmate,” he says happily when people look for too long.

“Congratulations,” most of them say back.

“Could you help me carry this?” says Jaehyun.

“He’s very strong,” continues Taeyong. “I love him.”

“I love you too,” says Jaehyun, but grudgingly.

The trampoline is unfortunately, unreturnable, and Mark manages to find a place for it in their dorm room so that Jaehyun has to look at every single day for the rest of the semester. But Taeyong is also unreturnable, and Jaehyun gets to look at _him_ every day for the rest of his life, so. It’s not that bad of a bargain.

**Author's Note:**

> I would like the record to show that I started writing this fic on April 5, 2020, days before we found out Jaehyun and Johnny did a photoshoot where they had to pretend to be Romeo from Romeo and Juliet. Wtf.
> 
> Share this fic: [Twitter](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1266522122781888513)  
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